Tour of Murietta

Did a two-day omnium (points) this past weekend over in Murietta, CA (just north of San Diego). After checking the weather forecast about 1000 times on Saturday morning, I decided to make a go at this thing. Two days. $4,000 purse (omnium only, no individual stage money), and with an NRC in fresno, I assumed that it would just be me against all the other amateur teams. Nope. A big [sarcastic] round of applause for the Successfulliving.com "pro" team, which, instead of going to the Fresno NRC only a couple hours away, went to San Diego to duke it out with a bunch of fookin' amateurs (I mean that literally, not in the insulting variant). Sure, there were a couple other isolated pros (Kodak, Tiacref, JitteryJoes, etc), but these guys bring their whole team, and make the race. Be proud, gentlemen. I hope that the money you made over the weekend was worth the legitimacy you lost as a DIII pro team.

Before the floodgates open up and let loose a bunch of sour grapes and excuses, let me say this: I sucked this weekend. I felt worse than I had all year, and it's the first time all year where I couldn't say "well, I felt great, but got unlucky". There really is nothing for me to salvage from the entire weekend. It was time, money, and effort wasted. Now, this isn't to say the race was without faults...

Yeah, I felt like shite, but we all feel that way sometimes, and still get a result somehow. That's bike racing. Everyone feels badly near the end of a race...it's just a measure of who feels least badly. Anyhow...Saturday. 1.5 mile circuit race or crit or something. It wasn't long or short. Terrible pavement, and just before the final turn, the road bottlenecked to become about 5 meters wide. Eh. Annoying, yeah. Add doses of heavy rain and 45 degree temps, and, well, it doesn't get better. The rain was sporadic, which is worse, because you get into a rhythm when it's dry, then when the rain starts, you lose your previous rhythm and create a new one...only to have it stop raining, repeat, repeat. Can you tell that I really don't care to write about this race? So last lap comes, i've actually got sweet position somehow. I aced turn 3 in good position (maybe 10th wheel? with a break of 5 up the road and gone) , then the pack slowed a bit, it bunched up, and I was pushed out of the 5 meter road and into the gutter (which in this case was basically a muddy dirt sidewalk/path), and lost a bunch of wheels, and rolled in for a frustrating 32nd. I sucked, and I won't lie, I don't race well in the rain. or mud. Jeremiah Wiscovich won. Guess what team he rides for? Wanks.

Day 2. I was bummed to find that this course was basically in the same decrepit part of town as the previous day, only a block south; and 3 miles instead of 1.5. 60 miles, 30 laps. The race was rough from the gun, gutter gutter gutter, heavy crosswind, headwind, rain, giant puddles taking up half the road (!!!). I didn't think it'd be possible, but the course was more sketch than the previous day. It seemed every turn's apex had a surprise sewer grate or slick deflector dot on it. Gah. After about an hour, the field withered down to about 40 guys. My mind was tired, above all, from all the nerve-wrecking concentration required for racing in the wet, but I was still there....until....we caught the master's field. I didn't know it at the time, as I was mid-pack, feeling badly, just focusing on recovery and the remaining ten laps. Next thing I know, I'm surrounded by old guys, with different numbers, and some guys from my race are yelling. huh? Oh. Yeah. About 10 guys in the pro race were gapped as a result of piss-poor officiating. The master's field was never neutralized, and no one said anything until it was too late. I made an effort to bridge with a successfulliving guy, but he did 1 or 2 pulls, then pulled out of the race after realizing that the gap was too big. We could have caught on, I needed his help, but nothing. I looked back to see if he was there, and he was gone, not even in the next group back. Totally gone. I've got a feeling he hid out somewhere, and rejoined the main group on the next lap, but didn't catch his name or number so have no way of knowing for sure. I dropped back, and rode the rest of the race with a lame little group, ashamed. I pulled out on the last lap to watch the finish and have a couple words with the official. I wasn't the only one, lots of pissed off people at the end of that one. And that was it, got in the car, changed really slowly and dejectedly, and was off.

Only good thing, I guess, is that weekends like this make me train harder, eat less, all that great stuff. Big big big weekend coming up, at San Dimas. My last race as a Cat 2. Should be a daisy. I'm checking forecasts every 6 minutes...cmmmmmmmmmon sun!