Impressions from the Tour of the Dragons Race in Bennington, Vermont

Thank God for spring and end of the semester! Let’s ride our bikes!

I was drawn to this race by the opportunity to ride a new hilly road race course in Vermont. Unfortunately, in order to do this I had to ride a time trial and a crit- and get up at 4:30 am as I was too cheap to pay for two nights of hotel. Cold drizzle, time trial bikes, and a lot of brand spanking new kits greeted me Saturday morning in Bennington. I was happy to see that many of the NEBC Cat 3 and 4 women had come to race, also my former teammate Sam Derry. Another former teammate Elle Anderson was racing for a rival team. I had hoped that the race would draw some more Cat 1 and 2 ladies. With only 16, we were a small group.

Time Trial

This was my favorite time trial course yet – very pretty. I would like to ride it again. I think that it would be a very fun course to practice on and try to improve your time. I didn’t have a lot of ambition here considering that it was my first time trial effort of the year, I was riding the course sight unseen on 6 hours of solid sleep, and I was on a road bike. I wasn’t too surprised to find myself in the bottom half of the results. I was surprised that one of my ankles was quite sore after the race – this did not bode well for the road race. I later found out that my saddle had slipped back on the rails – so I need to beef up the pre-race bike inspection. It is a good thing that I wasn’t taking the competitive aspects of the time trial very seriously or I might have been put into a very grumpy mood at a left turn early in the course. I realized that the course was open to traffic when I approached an intersection with 3 cars backed up at a stop where I needed to take a left turn. I could not see a marshal around the cars nor did I have a lot of room to the right of the cars. I shouted a few things in an effort to vent my frustrations while generously applying the brakes.

Crit

Afternoon Bennington was a ghost town. Some cyclists whipped around an empty course all afternoon while others slept in cars or on open grass. After a nap with a soundtrack of persistent lawnmover, I killed time limping around looking for the sign in. Finally found it in an unmarked building that had appeared to by vacant. Strange vibe in that place. I did truly enjoy a little art gallery on the course which was no customers business as usual in spite of the race outside the front door.

I’d like to congratulate the ladies from NEBC who told me that this was their first crit. Way to give it a go, ladies! Sam rode very well which was great to see.

Remember that saying “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything”? Maybe I should move on to the road race impressions. I wish that I had a helmet video of this crit to show as an example of some negative aspects of local women’s racing. The course was a very short 4 corner circuit which consisted of a rise, two turns, a thrilling turn at the bottom of the hill, and another turn. We had 37 laps to practice our skills in right turns and sprinting out of a corner. Before I continue I will concede that the promoter was in a bit of a hard place when it came to organizing the race because 16 ladies is not really enough for a race. However, a teeny tiny course is not really big enough for two fields either. The women’s 1,2 and 3,4 fields were run on the same little course and things went haywire quickly. Ladies were called to the line together which led to confusion. Written pre race communication had indicated that the fields would be started and scored separately with different numbers of laps for each field. The officials made no effort to explain ground rules for running the two fields together and I think that we would have just set right off if the 3.4 ladies did not loudly protest at the line with their questions. We did not start, we sat as the officials explained their ideas for what I was sure would be a circus of confusion. The rules were that the 3,4 field would start 15 sec after the 1,2s. The fields were not to mix. The primes would be awarded on separate laps for the two groups. All would ride 37 laps. And with that we were off, well sort of. One of the Cat 3 ladies set off with the 1,2s, then had to stop and roll back, then try to clip in and change direction as the 15 sec were up and 3,4s sprinted off the line.

We set off with a good speed but even so I wasn’t shocked when some of the feisty 3,4s caught up and joined with our field. That was good to keep me on my toes as I couldn’t let my lack of confidence in the corners cause me to drift back away from the other riders in my field. I focused on working through many negative thoughts that I had about racing crits while staying ahead of the 3,4s. The downhill corner was a good challenge for me to focus on. One lap I was focusing on that challenge while negotiating the corner in the group when I saw a rider to the left of me wobble. Oh no, I tried to smoothly head to the right. Not sure what happen but that rider hit the ground and another (Elle Anderson I think) came from behind and made a spectacular flip of bicycle and rider over a hay bale than I could have ever imagined. Truly the most visually stunning crash I’ve ever seen. After that I decided to stop thinking about lines for the corners and consider the race as a video game. It was turning into an obstacle course with 3,4 riders spread all over. Meanwhile Silke Wunderwald was out collecting primes. I focused on moving into a good position for the finish. I was 3^rd wheel with two laps to go, but failed to hold my place though the corners and ended up at the back on the last lap.

This was frustrating because I know I could have held my place with more mental focus and confidence.

I later found out that Katherine Snell also flipped over a hay bale in the same corner. I suggest more hay bales next year. Many it is good that there were no spectators because they could have been taken out!

Many of the 3,4 ladies complained after the race that some of them were drafting off of the 1,2 field. I think that this was true for the first part of the race. I didn’t see any ahead of me towards the end but who knows. In any case, I think that the results for the 3,4s were likely screwed up and I see why they would be upset.

Road Race

Yea! Road Race! We had a great day for it with sun and warm weather. The course was interesting. It was quite unusual in that the first half of the course was much harder than the 2^nd half. The first 11 miles was ho hum, then a good climb on dirt followed by another good climb and a few more miles before the feed zone at mile 32 or so. Then another 30 miles with some shorter climbs. The 1^st climb was a good challenge. I didn’t want to go so hard that I couldn’t maintain for the rest of the race so tried to pace off the yellow jersey, which is to say keep her in sight. I was happy to see Jackie from NEBC looking good after the first climb. The 2^nd climb was also good, although in retrospect I should have pushed harder, anyway I made it over ok. At the bottom, we had a group of 4. Then we became 5. Then we lost a rider and gained a new one. Our group headed to the feed zone and rotated ourselves around for the next 30 miles. With just a few miles to go, we were neutralized so that the juniors could pass. Two lead riders came by and a few minutes later, I could see them hugging each other ahead of us. What was that?!? Hugging is for after the finish. We passed them and motored ahead.

I ended up last in the sprint. In retrospect there were a few places where I could probably have dropped at least one and possibly two of the other riders had I attacked on one of the later climbs. Unfortunately I did not give myself the opportunity to see how this would have played out.

On the way home, we stopped at a dairy farm to spend a good portion of my winnings on cheese. So much for dropping weight before the next race.