6 My First Bike Race

This morning, there was a road race organised by Buffalo Bicycling Club at Langford, Boston. Me and Dave were the only two from our club to go. He's been riding and racing for 4 years now, and he's a very good cyclist. Meanwhile, I started last year, and after I got my blue Specialized Allez about 5 months back, I put a 1000 base miles on it. So I decided to give it a shot and see how it feels like.

The countryside was fantastic. Roads had rolling hills and its a good sight while to drive on them, but it is a pretty challenging course for a bike ride. 9 miles a loop, 3 laps so that made 28 miles total. It was cold and windy and we thought it would rain, but it didn't. I guess the rain is destined for later today. Anyway, so race starts and I got a slightly late start. I held on to the wheel of this big guy in a red jersey, but soon enough, everyone was getting away from me, and I found myself alone for the rest of the ride, biting the wind and the roads. Dave flatted out maybe 4 to 5 miles into the race and while he was fixing his tire, his value stem broke. I passed him along the way and I guess that meant he had to quit. I kept going and the hills could have killed me if I didn't take it easy and choose my gearing wisely. I made a few mistakes on the first lap. I was breathing hard and my heart rate was between 198-203 beat per minute. My body was telling me to stop because this was the first time I was riding fast on hills and this is coming from a guy who hasn't doesn't live in an area with a lot of hills. I would say they had moderate grade but it just came, one after the other, and after a point, my speed shot down to an average of 16mph (I was going 27mph and above on downhills).

Somehow I finished the second loop, and about 2 miles into the last lap, I flatted out. Shamelessly, I discovered I forgot my pump back in the car. A support car with our coach (Frank Grillo, officer of BBC and a bike racer himself) came and picked me up and though I was disappointed I couldn't finish that last lap just for my satisfaction, I will cherish the fact that I didn't destroy myself. I had a good workout, on the saddle, off the saddle, on and off as the hills came and went. It felt good. This is my first tiny step. Over the winter, our coach will test me for my lactate threshhold and prescribe a series of drills to do so as to train myself for the season in Spring, when there will be a lot of Collegiate Races.

If you're a beginner cyclist, put a good number of base miles and then try out a race. Its a challenging sport, but whats more better than knowing that you're getting better at it, through leaps and bounds?