It's been a busy spring for me and I haven't had much of a chance to ride with the guys on the Wake Forest University Cycling Team this year as I had hoped, but nonetheless, they were nice enough to let me race in the home race (and my first ever cycling road race!) this Saturday out in East Bend, NC.
All in all, things went okay for my first road race. I didn't have any mechanical problems and I didn't crash in the jam-packed peloton, so I will consider that a success. But, as I run the race over in my head, I realize how much strategy there actually is to a road race. Certainly, strategy plays a much larger role in this style of race than I had given it credit.
The weather was ideal for my tastes as a racer raised in Buffalo, NY. Low 50's and overcast with a cool breeze is just about the perfect weather to really exert oneself, in my opinion. However, the rest of the ACC racers and the officials weren't on the same page, and decided to cut my race (men's C) down from 3 laps (~30 mi) to 2 laps (~20 mi) to avoid the potential rainfall on the last lap. Right off the bat, I already knew that I had lost a little bit of my advantage in the race. I was really hoping that the 3rd lap would slim down the field a little bit and give an edge to those that had a little bit bigger aerobic base. Nonetheless, the whistle blew and we started off in a "neutral start" until the first turn. I jockeyed for position amongst the peleton of ACC cyclists from about a dozen different schools, including App State, UNC, Navy, William & Mary, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Maryland, etc. After the first turn I expected somebody to make a surge and my plan was to just do what I could to hang on the back of the surging group. However, during the whole first lap, nobody really made a move. People seemed content to just hang with the peloton and let everybody get a chance at the lead. As somebody who exclusively raced time trials up to this point, it was incredibly frustrating. I was literally just coasting along at a power output that was almost 100 watts below my FTP! Had this race been a 20 mile time trial, I would have been riding the whole thing right at FTP wattage.
I'm not sure what would have been the best strategy at this point. Surely I could have gone off solo and hammered the wind myself, but the enormous peloton could have easily worked to reel me back in and overtake me eventually. But, being inexperienced as I was, I decided to hang back and just watch how things unfolded.
As we came around on our second lap of the race, nothing really changed. The pace had only picked up enough to drop a few straglers off the back and I was still hanging with the lead group of about 25 riders at a power output well below what I knew I could ride for this 20 mi race. The were 2 significant climbs on the course and as we approached the second hill on the second lap (which was only a few miles from the finish line), I realized that the lead riders were going make a surge. The riders in front of me rocketed up the hill and surged over the top. I was boxed in on the outside shoulder of the road when they made the surge and lost about 30-40 yards on the lead group before I could really make an attempt to catch up. As hard as I tried, I could not catch back up with the lead group despite several surges of 1000+ watts. At this point my legs were toast and I crossed the finish line solo in 19th place. I knew that if I had to rely on sprinting at the end of the race I would be done for. I was hoping there would be a good opportunity to hammer out the last 5-10 mins of the race and break away from some of the sprinters, but after losing the lead group, I didn't even have the chance.
It's hard to review my ride file from the race and see how low my average power was throughout most of the race and see where I lost the pack with some of those huge surges. It is incredibly different than a time trial effort! But overall, it was extremely fun and a really good learning experience. I need to read up a bit and develop a better strategy before my next road race!
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