Two Wheel Blogs

It's Sunday afternoon already? What happened to the weekend? There's nothing like a bike race to make a day go by in a hurry. Yesterday I did the first two races in the 2008 Tour of St. Louis - the Carondelete Park criterium and the Columbia Bottoms Conservation Area timetrial.

The Tour of St. Louis is actually a 2-day event. There is a criterium on Sunday morning in Forest Park. I skipped that one, opting to make the weekend into something better resembling a stage race. A couple of emails and a phone call later I'd landed myself into a couple of hours of hard (for me, at least) riding.

Weekend stats
Add it all up and it's a fairly hefty total of training load for two days' work:

Saturday crit and TT: 178
Sunday road ride:     129
Weekend total:        307TSS

Somehow my legs don't feel really as trashed as I would have thought they would after a two-day assault like that. Chalk one up in the plus category.

Speaking of plusses, let's look at some of the good and not-so-good from my own little Tour of St. Louis stage race:

• I achieved my main objectives in the criterium. Those objectives were to feel comfortable moving around in the main bunch, to ride on the front, to ride off the front, to bridge to a break (if not to make my own), to have an effect on the overall race, and to inflict a little pain.

  I also managed to help out my mates a few times. I was able to ride at the front with them, ready to support whatever move they might try, or to help them counter a move. I also moved to the front when Lou rode off the front. I can't say I was all that effective at blocking, but at least the other guys had to accelerate to get around me when I sat up on the front.

  With one to go I sat up and finished at the back of the main group. Mission accomplished.

• I took second in the TT. I can't say it affected the outcome, but I really blew the turnaround on this one. Instead of a quick turn around in the entrance to the parking lot, yours truly circumnavigated the entire lot. Looking back, I'm lucky nobody happened to be backing their car out of a parking spot at the time.
• Best move: A tie between volunteering to marshall the turnaround so later riders would be less likely to make the same mistake I did and deciding before the start of the race not to contest the sprint if I somehow managed to get that far. Some of those guys were pretty big, and I imagine they had big sprints to go with their size.
• Worst move: This one's no contest. Not asking the officials about the turnaround when I knew it wasn't a simple mid-road traffic cone... rookie mistake.
• Best thing I saw: Once while I was riding on the front of the crit I looked over and saw a horrible grimace on a Team Mack guy's face. I was hurting, but he looked like he was two pedal strokes beyond blown. No doubt about it, crits can be very painful.
• Worst thing I saw: While cooling down from the crit I happened to be riding along the course barriers just as the Cat 4's came by. The compression from wide to narrow was too much for the field, and because nobody wanted to give way several guys hit the barriers, crashing through and over them right in front of me. Luckily no one was seriously hurt. I don't think I'll forget that that one soon.
• Best quote: My 2008 Tour of St. Louis best quote came as I playing course marshall at the timetrial turnaround. A woman who'd been caught by the woman who started a minute behind her calmly posed a rhetorical question as she rounded the turn:
  

  She's right behind me, isn't she.

We all got a nice lift from that straightforward matter-of-fact acknowledgment of a stronger competitor. Talk about a great attitude. After all, it's only a bike race.

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