Tri Peaks and the Battle for Uphill Dominance

After a good performance on Saturday mechanical difficulties relegated me to the wheel truck on Sunday. However, mad props go out to Uncle Steve for turning Mt. Nebo into his own personal suffer fest and leaving the competition in the dust.

Slowly but surely my powers as a climber, which were long rumored to exist, are coming into reality. Mills and Coles no doubt are confused about where my climbing prowess emerged from but I assure them largely it's a result of our combined stupidity of fighting 30 mph headwinds on the way to Globe, Baldwin City, Wellsville, Topeka and beyond. Not to mention the ability to descend on the top tube at 50-60 mph without blinking while hitting a corner that is supposed to be taken at 25 mph.

Here is the race profile for those who doubt that I really climbed.











I cannot mention my race on Sunday, because a flat taking me out of a road race makes me so angry. This is especially the case when I had just put new tires on the Ksyriums in order to prevent the same. Therefore, I will only talk about Saturday. Three climbs and 93 miles of racing put me in a tie for 4th place in a field of 50. After 20 flat miles of jockeying for position and making sure no one snuck away we hit Petit Jean. Petit Jean is a dirty little stair-stepper which started steep and the sort of relinquished it's grip as we went up. After my failures last year at McMinnville, I learned the lesson that no one wins a climb by starting in the back. So I started all the climbs in about 10th. Petit Jean failed to break enough legs to make it worth any trouble at all.

25 miles later was the long, and as far as I know unnamed climb. Honestly, I didn't notice we were going up it, until I saw everyone around me slow down and felt my legs start to burn. I looked to the right and left of me and suddenly there was a valley beneath me. The second climb lasted close to 6 miles and by about mile 4 I was beginning to grow weary of it. After engaging in the battle of who is the best climber in the 601 area code with a guy from Memphis Motor Werks we crested the mountain in a small group of maybe 15.

The descent was long and open so I took a few pages from Ben Coles' "Guide to Cycling While Intoxicated or how to not use your Brakes while Going Downhill" and put the knees and elbows together and head on the handlebars and went downhill. At the base of the descent about a mile later there were two of us together with a few stragglers. No one organized and so about 30 guys were able to pace back on to form what remained of the group.

25 miles later we hit the Danville climb. What I love the most about Arkansas climbs is the sign that proceeds them: "Caution the next X miles is steep and curves." We passed that sign and my teammate yells from the back, "good luck Rob and God speed". Danville was short but steep. It may have last only a mile, but when the lead group crested there were seven of us remaining. I'll admit that at 70 some odd miles into the race I was reaching my climbing breaking point. Something amazing happened to me during that final climb. I was getting gaped and my power to continue was failing me. I closed my eyes and took an extra deep breath and surged forward again. It was as if the guys in front of me stood still for a second. I rode right up to the front of the little group. I've seen that exact scene happen a bunch of times on flat land but at those points in time I could never make it back to the group and ended up getting dropped. There was something about the going uphill part that gave me just a little extra power to make the connection.

As we passed the final feed zone I grabbed myself a bottle of Heed and descended again (if anyone else can tell me what Heed is I'd appreciate it, because to me it tasted like watered down coke). The final descent would have made Jed proud. There was a corner with a 15 mph sign posted pretty close to the bottom of it. I saw a group of about 5 forming 100 feet in front of me and knew that this plus a few others was going to be the selection and I wanted to be in that group. I went to the top of the corner, which curved to the left, grabbed both brakes and tipped the bike sharp right. I let go of the levers and plunged right to back of that group.

It took another 5 minutes for us to be joined by any of the climb's survivors and we made up a group of 14 who pacelined into the finish. By mile 90 I was cooked and just sat on as the little guys (i.e. those skinner than me) pulled us in. I wasn't dead weight, but I did almost drop myself the couple of times I pulled. So I relegated myself to the back.

The weekends success and follies compelled me to call up the old coach. So starting in the Fall I'd like to get Coach Mills back in the action, that's if he'll have me back? However, I think for this week I'm going to kick back and relax to avoid the burnout that I'm starting to feel.