Joaquin Feliciano, Snelling 35+ 4/5

So there I was, right up at the front of the pack, waiting for the 35+ 4/5 B group race to start. The plan among the 6 of us DBC B group riders was to go out as fast as possible and try to split up the pack right away. Since this was my very first road race, I was keeping my goals simple: 1) Stay near the front and ride like hell for as long as possible, 2) stay upright, and 3) finish the race.

With two minutes to roll out, I decided to take a quick hit of food. I pulled out the bottle, gave it a good shake…and doused myself, my brand new kit, my bike, the (non-DBC) rider next to me, his kit, and his bike with almost an entire flask of Chocolate Espresso flavored Hammer Gel. I offered to let him spray me with his Accelerade in return, but he laughed it off and said it didn’t really matter ‘cuz he’d probably be getting a whole lot messier over the next few hours.

How much worse could it get after that brilliant display from the Emperor of the Gumby Nation? Keep reading. The roll out went as planned and as far as I could tell the entire DBC squad was together at the front when the motorcycle got out of the way. And then it was on! I don’t know how fast it felt for anyone else, but for me it felt really really fast, like pucker factor 10.5 fast. Things were going great until the little downhill zigzags after the feed zone. I could have sworn I was keeping up, but by the time the road straightened out again I had somehow managed to reverse attack all the way to the very back of the pack!

I hung on through the rest of the downwind leg and about half of the crosswind leg before I realized I was starting to blackout – heavy arms and legs, buzzing in the ears, uncontrolled drooling, blurred vision as I watched the main field pull away from me, you know the drill. Amazingly, even in that pre-catatonic state, I was still passing guys who were getting spit out the back faster, and who seemed in even worse shape, than me. So that was kind of encouraging.

By the time I sorted myself out, I was in a 5-person group just trying to work together and finish. But then two of the guys dropped out after the first lap and at the end of the 2nd lap another guy dropped his chain and shredded his rear derailleur. So he was out as well. Four miles later my last riding partner missed a sweeping right hand curve and rode straight off the road into a barbed wire fence. I didn't actually see how it happened. I had gapped him by about 100 meters going up a hill and was sitting up to let him catch me when I heard him yell, “F%@k! S%@t!” When I looked around, his bike was in the air and he was rolling toward the fence. Two cyclists right behind us stopped to check on him, allowing me to keep going. So for those last two laps I got to spend some quality time in a rotating paceline with me, myself, and I. Plus some wind, some rain, and a brief shower of hail.

But, hey, I finished, had a blast, met all my goals for the race, and got in a great 3-hour training ride. Plus, our own John S won the heat! So a successful day overall.

-j