This was a cat 4/5 and cat 4 women combined race, so we had a very diverse field at the start line. There was some climbing just a few miles in, so there was some winnowing almost immediately. On that first descent, I broke away from the field by just tucking down and not using my brakes.
After the first KOM we were probably down to about 30 riders. Near the end of the flat part we were somehow down to just about 15 riders. I’m not sure how we dropped that many because there wasn’t that much climbing in that section. The pace was very slow. At one point I had to almost pull over and stop just to get myself off of the front. Everyone was looking forward to the big climb.
I was chatting with one of the guys about this dynamic and I suggested that one could either rest as much as possible before the climb, or break away and try to get a head start on it. A few minutes later, he did just that. Nobody seemed to be worried about it even though he picked up at least a minute on the group. He had told me earlier that he was going to be very slow on the climb, so I didn’t think much of it. Of course, I didn’t fully realize that EVERYONE was going to be really slow on the climb.
I didn’t have a feel for where the climb was with respect to the finish line, so it kind of snuck up on me. It starts with a long section at 5-6%. Then in the blink of an eye it goes right to 15%. Wheee! Let’s start racing! There’s no draft effect at 15% of course, so everyone just started doing their own thing. Half of our small group started drifting back from me, the other half started drifting away.
4km to go and I’m feeling ok, not great. At this point I still have the wherewithal to count the riders up the road and think about what I can do about my placing once I get to the top. 3km to go and ouch this really hurts but feels like it’s under control. 3km is 3000 meters and I’m banging out at least one meter per second. Seems doable; thank you metric system! I start to see a lot of guys walking. After another 500 meters, walking seems like a reasonable thing to do.
My goal for the race is now to summit this bastard without dismounting. I need a bailout gear from my bailout gear. It’s starting to feel out-of-control hard and I’m using every part of my body just to turn the cranks over. Standing. Sitting. There’s no relief anywhere. I start yelling incoherently, which seems to help a little.
2km to go. No. That is too far. I cannot. But I do. Heart rate above 200 BPM. I’m just staring at my front wheel and concentrating on staying upright. And yelling – lots of yelling.
1km to go. I probably was feeling ‘better’ at this point because I can’t remember feeling worse. I passed a guy wearing the yellow jersey from one of the stage race fields. He was walking.
I crossed the KOM line just in front of the wheel car in 7th place on the road without putting any feet on the ground. My legs didn’t really want to go fast at that point, but I still had 5 miles to go on the flat. Any hope of catching anyone evaporated pretty quickly, and there was no one visible behind me, so I just started riding my battered corpse home as fast as I could. A rider from my field caught me with about 2 miles to go and I grabbed his wheel. He seemed to be happy to pull me to the finish line. He compensated for this tactical mistake by jumping out of the turn a half mile from the finish line and catching me by surprise.
The guy who broke away before the climb ended up in 2nd. I got 8th. That climb was definitely the hardest thing I’ve done on a bike.
