Indy Rootstock :: Mike Garrison

This past Sunday I decided to take a crack at a cycling road race. I've been road riding for just under two years to train for AR, and was intrigued by the course for this race. It was a five mile clockwise loop in Brown County State Park, the "southern" loop for those familiar. My group, the Cat4/5 riders, would have to ride 5 laps, for 25 total miles of riding.

To say that this course was hilly is a bit of an understatement. I know, it's nothing like riding in actual mountains, but for Indiana I don' think it's overreaching to refer to some of those hills as "brutal". Heck, two of the hills on the course had signs instructing riders to dismount and walk their bikes down. It made me smile every time I rode past one into the downhill portion of the course. I'm sure if I had looked for the other one at the top of the climb I would have found it, but I was too busy trying to keep the pedals turning and not pass out!

The race started with 68 riders riding immediately to the downhill with the warning sign. For a first timer it was wild. You could smell the burning rubber as the majority of riders were on their brakes at least a little bit. (I would brake on the hill every trip down until the last where I finally got the courage/stupidity to go no brakes. It's a bizarre combination of exhilaration and fear the first time you approach 50 mph on a bike...)

The whole field stayed roughly together until the first climb and then the carnage began and the field split up almost instantly. I lost all track of where I was relative to pretty much anyone else and just tried to climb as steadily and quickly as a I could. The "up" portion of the course consisted of short steep sections interspersed between some easy rollers. I imagine it was only 5-7 minutes of effort, but if felt a lot longer.

On that first lap I managed to stay in a group of about 12 riders as we left the top of the climb for the short section back to the start/finish. Being in a group was a huge help in keeping the pace up. I knew that it was important to stay with at least a few other riders if at all possible for the flatter sections of the course, and I did pretty well for the first three laps. Unfortunately I spent most of the last two laps by myself and I know I had to have lost time (and worked harder) on the flats.

The middle laps were the hardest for me mentally as the body just keeps getting more and more tired, but you know you still have more trips to make up that hill. It helped having Cristal waiting for me at the top, but it was still a painful ordeal getting that bike up the climbs each time. At this point in the race it almost didn't feel like a race since I rarely saw other riders. It made it hard to stay focused and always make sure I was pushing myself hard enough.

Coming in to the fifth and final set of climbs Tim Casady from Nebo Ridge caught up with me (a familiar face!) and we pretty much rode in to the finish together with him edging me out at the finish. It was a fitting end as he helped convince me to do the race in the first place.

In the end I placed 31st out of 68 riders. Pretty much smack in the middle of the pack. (There were a total of 17 DNF's. I'm not sure how many riders typically DNF at a road race, but I would not be surprised if that number is high.) Not too bad for an adventure racer that had almost no idea what he was getting into. To go that hard for just over an hour is not like anything I'm used to doing. Throw in the importance of strategy (and having some friends on the course) and it was definitely a new experience.

Can't say that I'll be making a habit of racing road bikes, but the challenge of this particular course will certainly have me coming back again.

Mike Garrison

Indy Rootstock

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Mike Garrison

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

2009 BCSP road race

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