Mississippi Bluffs Road Race

A bit of a strange one, this. Neither the flyer or website gives out much info, so one basically has to go on trust – which is fairly typical for an ABR race. Anyway, it’s a 30 mile road race near the Quad Cities and is billed as the ABR Illinois state champs. 30 miles is a bit short for a road race, never mind state champs, but it’s a road race and deserves to be supported. One gets some knowledge from finding last year’s results. It appears that they ran all senior cats together in one pack – there was quite a small turnout in the elite categories and reasonable in the masters, but not enough to merit splitting the groups. A bit strange but, hey!, it’s different.

This year they planned to run the open 1/2/3/4s together and the other masters cats in a separate group. I registered for the masters because I wasn’t in the mood to get my ass handed to me by some cat 2s and there was the opportunity to work with some teammates who were racing other masters cats as well.

Because of roadworks some of the highway exits were closed off, but we found the staging area after a few missteps. A lot of people (racers and registration folks) had some difficulties with ABR licenses and categorizations and registration was remarkably slow for the moderate numbers there. Once sorted, we head out for a 20 minute warm up and make our way back to the start. After a while the official announces that the masters 30+ and 40+ would join the 1/2/3/4s for one start and the other masters would race together. This evens up pack numbers to 25-30 in each group. Foiled from not being able to ride with my teammates, but not to worry. With no designated number system we simply raise our hands to show which group we belong to. I try to memorise who is who but soon forget. There are 3 cat2s, 4 cat 4s and a bunch of masters. Team Mack came in force but only two of them are in the younger masters fields. The older guys got a bigger turnout, it seems,
because there’s no suitable superweek category for them.

A couple of Team Mack guys punch it from the first turn but in the stiff 15 mph wind they don’t get far and they return to the fold. That was the pattern of the race, a couple of people would try to get a gap but make little headway. Any solo riders who attacked got chased down by one of the teams with 3 or more riders, but none of the teams really tried to make any organized move themselves. With so many cats racing together, they negated each other and nobody was willing to do much work or was even sure who was racing against who.

A stiff wind, quite a few turns and a moderate amount of climbing and descending on some reasonably quiet roads made for a worthy course. Too bad we never really grasped it. The first few miles had a couple of fast right handers, then a few miles on a windy wide road with a shoulder, a sharp left hander followed by a right hander onto a more protected road, a very fast minute long descent to a sharp right and then two reasonable hills, some windy straightaways, a long gradual descent, turn onto a crosswind-ravaged frontage road for a few miles, chicane onto a more sheltered frontage road, leading to a steep minute long hill, then a milelong headwind drag race with a fast downhill and a long false flat to the start/finish line.

The legs were feeling quite heavy and I got gapped a few times going round corners on lap 1. I hung near the back just trying to warm up a bit more, I noticed a few people falling back on the second of the hills but we took it easy on the downhills and it was easy to catch back on. Nothing much happened until we hit the steep uphill before the finish. I big ringed it, some people punched it and the pack split, I hung on to the first group - just about - but it was one of the more painful experiences I’ve had on a bike. Hitting the start of lap 2 we slowed up again and most of the dropped riders caught on again.

I started to feel much better and moved up to the front of the pack to see what was going on. The three Cat 2s jumped away to fight it out and everyone was happy to let them go. Chris from Verdigris attacked several times but he was chased down by a different Project 5 rider each time. That was about it. Guys got gapped several times on the hills and the pack could easily have been whittled down by half had any of the teams decided to push the pace, but nobody did – and we were all one happy little family again coming onto the wide frontage road with about 5 miles to go.

There we hit a head/crosswind and the slow-bike-race began. It was comical. Whoever was in the wind would go slower and slower and the pack would bunch up behind and not allow him to fall back. One or two guys would attack, be let hang for a while and then the pace would increase for a few seconds until they were reeled in. After a while I finally lost my patience and made my way to the front, upped the pace and took a long steady pull for a mile or so. I waggled my elbow like a crazy man but nobody pulled through. I rode onto the white line and the pack duck waddled right behind me, rode over to the yellow line and the pack waddled over obediently behind me, speeded up a bit and they speeded up, slowed down and they slowed down. This is a bit embarrassing, had nobody any shame that a solo rider was able to play such games with them? Apparently not.

It was clear that everybody was settling for a drag race to the finish, whoever could punch it to the top of the hill and then still have enough gas left for the sprint would win, and the groupthink was for everyone to conserve their energy for that. I wasn’t prepared to settle for that so pulled a bit more, but going at about 12 mph. I didn’t want to hit the final steep hill with the pack and I guessed a couple of others would have the same idea, so I wanted to be well placed to jump on to any attack.

I had underestimated the distance to the final hill so decided to embarrass the pack into pulling through. We hit a wider stretch with a shoulder and I rode onto that, with the pack following, but I gradually ride through worse and worse surface, gravel, broken glass and then finally onto the grass verge. It finally clicked that grabbing my wheel might not be a good idea and someone eventually took the responsibility to pull through on the white line, albeit still at slow-bike-race speed. The turn onto the last stretch came up and I hit that first to make sure I wouldn’t get gapped. With a narrower, more sheltered road the pace increased. Chris from Verdigris had one last go and was marked by one of the team riders who was watching him. They maintained a gap so I buried myself and jumped on. Seeing the hill coming up I came round them and got a nice gap of a few seconds hitting the base of the hill. This time I little-ringed it at my own pace and felt good.

The pack caught me halfway up and swarmed round me. I’m a decent climber and was amazed how I went from first to last in about ten seconds. Nobody got gapped this time on the hill either. Wow! I must be a lousy rider! I had no particular interest or much energy for a sprint so I was facing yet another disappointing back-of-the-pack finish. We descend quickly and hit the finishing uphill drag. Then something strange happens, guys start dropping off like flies. I’m just maintaining my speed and people are blowing up left and right. One solo rider who didn’t put his nose in the wind for the full race goes off the front and wins by several bike lengths, I’m waiting for the sprint to start but it never does, the front guys hit a brick wall of wind and fatigue and sort of limp across the line in fairly random fashion - everybody scrunched up into a length of maybe 3 bike lengths or so.. I finish mid to two thirds back in the pack after negotiating my way through the maze of immolated riders who shot their wad on the hill. Looks like my tactic of
getting a gap and riding the hill at my own pace had some merits. Either way, it was the most bizarre finish I’ve ever been part of.

Overall it was a very fun course, a bit too short to test strength and fitness, those who couldn’t or wouldn’t work were never tested. A team willing to push the pace here and there and/or an extra lap could really turn it into a not-to-be missed premier cycling event. I certainly could have finished higher if I had slunk at in the final miles, but I don't see any point in doing that. Racing for 10th place is dumb and I don't learn anything from it or enjoy the experience. I'd much rather finish at the back and know that I, at least, attempted to make it a race. Given that almost all the masters were Cat 3s or better, I guess I did ok. Do those guys who finished just a couple of places ahead of me, without contributing to the race, feel good about it?

So that was it; waited a while to watch the older masters finish – my teammate Dan attacked in the very same place as I and managed to hold the lead before blowing up with 300 yards to go. He was absolutely destroyed coming over the line and couldn’t speak for 20 minutes or so afterwards.

We hung around exchanging war stories for quite a while. There was no sign of any results or officials so most people gave up and headed home – still trying to take the whole bizarre experience in.

This race has fantastic potential. Just make it a little longer and publicise it in a more comprehensible manner and it should easily attract 2-3 times the numbers in a year or two. Posting results a little sooner than two weeks afterwards would also encourage a larger participation.