Illinois State Road Race

Willow Springs, IL

If you believe that a State Road Race Championship should be long and hard, and those fighting it out at the finish should have earned the right to be there, then you’re probably not from Illinois.

Amazing job from Tower Racing in finding the only hill in Chicagoland, organizing the permits, partial closure of roads and solving multiple other problems – while keeping a strong emphasis on safety (and parking a respectable Irish pub, with viewing patio, on the course). After the usual ritual of getting lost in Chicagoland, we found the racesite; parking and registration couldn’t have been smoother; temperature was cool and the mood was good. $35 registration is a very fair price for a road race, considering that CX and Crit races are hitting $30 now. I have no problems with the late fee either. Many people doubled up, so it would have been nice to get that $10-15 off for a second race as $70 is starting to get a bit steep to support the premier bike event of the year as fully as one can.

The 10 mile triangular course consisted of a 3 tier mile long hill with about 200 ft of climbing, a smooth descent followed by two 4 mile sections of smooth, narrow and sheltered road with a couple of false flats. The finish line was located at the top of the hill and the start a short distance before the bottom, so each race would ascend the hill by the number of laps plus one. Bar the hill, there was nothing to aid a separation, the lack of wind and smooth road kept speeds high, however this lack of natural separation didn’t prevent the cat 4s from creating their own.

It’s been an abysmal season for me. Don’t know if I’ve even finished in the upper half of a race this year, so I was hoping to gain some redemption with this one and get a decent result. Being a hill aficionado with no sprint, but solid endurance, I thought I should be able to do ok.

The order of the day was hammer it up the hill, coast down, tootle along merrily chatting amongst ourselves for the next 9 miles and repeat. Those who did well never showed their face at the front, did no work and had enough endurance to put out strong surges in power over a 1-2 minute period. Being an uphill sprint, the bigger 20 second crit sprinters were at a disadvantage – it would be interesting to see whether the smaller sprinters or the more powerful, but bigger, trackie types would do well on the day..


Masters Cat 4/5 75 starters

Biggest field of the day for the old geezer 4/5s. We were all aware that the centerline rule was strictly enforced, but other details concerning where use of both lanes were allowed were unclear because nobody outside the first two rows was able to hear the official.

Off we went, there were several holes and parallel cracks in the road that we weren’t prepared for and half a dozen bottles went flying immediately. Up the hill at a robust clip – hurt like heck in my unwarmed-up state – and through the finish line. Mindful of previous experience I tried not to lag near the back where accidents happen but only managed to make it up to about 40th place.

Crash #1

A little bit past the finish, just where the shoulder vanishes, something happened. I didn’t see or hear it happen, just saw the rear of a bike, with a leg attached, lying horizontal about 5 wheels ahead. I yelled out a warning, hit the brakes and unclipped. I slowed down pretty quick but was most worried about being crashed into from behind and sent flying into the rapidly increasing pile of bikes and bodies. Somehow I managed to negotiate my way between the flying bottles, metal, carbon and flesh but didn’t have time to congratulate myself. The guys at the front punched it immediately and the pack was split in two. There was no way I was going to let them get away and have my race ruined. I endured several of the most painful minutes I have ever experienced on a bike, chasing like a madman until they slowed down slightly for the turn onto 96th and I caught back on. Only a couple of us made it.

Nothing much happened after that, I felt we were going pretty slowly and expected that the rest of the field would catch on, but they never did. There were a bunch of manholes on Archer Rd that weren’t expected, and made taking a drink quite risky – combined with regular 4/5 riding, you had to have your wits about you to avoid surprised riders with one hand off the bars making squirrelly moves. That said, the pack was overall quite well behaved and nobody took any stupid risks. I was still suffering from my bridging effort and hung at the back hoping to recover.

The first three times up the hill were painful. The fourth time, coming on to the last lap, I got to the top and realized that I had barely noticed it. Took me 30 miles to warm up. Time to move up and get in good position for the final dig.

I spent the rest of the lap trying to move up without much success. I’d try on the outside, get stalled and get passed by those on the inside. Try again on the inside, and get passed by the outside. We were all bunched up and with very few people jockeying for position there was little fluidity and opportunity to get forward. I kept trying, nonetheless, and as we hit the corner for the final climb I looked around to gauge my position. I was still amazed to see that I was last but one of the 35 or so still in the pack.

As usual, a few riders found they were in too high a gear and stalled. I took the oppor-tunity and dug hard, shooting up to about 20th and tucking back in. Hitting the second tier I was able to move up to about 15th past a few guys who were starting to feel the quickening pace. All I needed now was the pack to spread out a bit and move into the top 10 before the final deciding all-out effort for the line.

It never happened, nobody was sure where the centerline rule ended and risk getting DQ’d so we proceeded like that until coming to the base of the hill. Boxed in, with not much I could do about it!

Then the shenanigans started: someone decided to break to the left, then swing to the right, another guy gave his teammate a lead out and decided that swinging over to the right and impeding half the pack was the right thing to do. Others felt that riding diagonally was preferable to going straight, and if swinging to the left didn’t make you faster, then trying to swing to the right might. The two guys directly in front of me were banging shoulders and handlebars and swerving all over the shop. I was seriously scared to move up - shamefully amateurish riding.

I felt amazing - floating uphill with no chain, accelerating up the slope and feeling nothing. My first no-chain day of the year and I’m having to soft pedal and touch the brakes several times to avoid the nonsense in front that was scaring the living daylights out of me.

After an eternity feeling that I was stuck outside the pay toilet with a crooked penny, the two antagonists in front ran out of steam and I was able to sneak by. Just in time:

Crash #2

One of the guys I had just passed went down; spontaneously, I think. I heard the worst crashing cacophony imaginable; yells, swearing, brakes and the sound of metal scraping and carbon breaking – lots of it – frames, wheels, shifters, bars, the lot. At least 10 people got taken out. A buddy who came on the scene a couple of minutes later said there were bodies and bikes all over the road.

I didn’t look back, just wanted to get the hell out of there. Finally, I saw daylight with about 60 meters to go and was able to punch it for all I was worth. I zoomed past half a dozen riders and managed to sneak into the top 10 before running out of real estate, crossing the line with plenty left in the tank and feeling like I had barely broken sweat.

I, along with a few others boxed-in guys, should have been sprinting for the podium. I was at least as strong as anyone else in the race. Lousy positioning on my part and inept riding by others had cost me the chance for the win. Still, a top 10 in the State road race is a remarkable improvement for me – I’ll take it and be thankful that I’m still intact.

Cat 4 race 55 starters

Things were a bit more fluid in this race. This time the official made sure that everyone heard the pre-race instructions and we had all taken the time to figure out where we could spread out for the hill. I was feeling bad about not doing much work in the previous race, so I went to the front from the beginning and pushed the pace several times to make it just that bit safer. I also wanted to test the legs and see what I had left; clearly not much as I nearly got dropped the second time up the hill. So, I wouldn’t be sprinting for the win, but there was no reason that I still couldn’t get a good top 15-20 result if I paid some attention to good positioning and measured out my efforts.

Crash #3

Nothing much to report before the finish. The pack stayed together, maybe 3 or 4 people got dropped by flatting or finding that they just couldn’t climb hills. Next-to-last time up the hill, half a dozen riders decided to risk DQ and crossed over to the left lane, one fool knocked over one of the cones placed to prohibit this and knocked it into the path of another rider in the right lane. He managed to avoid it, but was forced back into the next cone. Sandwiched between the pack on the right and the rule-flaunting riders on the left he had nowhere to go, colliding with the cone, going down with a blood-curdling scream and taking a couple others with him. Meanwhile, the guys who caused it all snuck back into the pack, smirkily pretending that nothing had happened. I hope they’re proud of themselves.

The hill was starting to hurt, but I didn’t want to repeat the positioning fiasco of earlier; I sucked up the pain, dug deep, and made it into the first half-dozen riders as we crossed the summit. I let myself fall back a few places here and there but stayed in the front third of the field for the rest of the lap, being able to move over and let my teammate past for a prominent position as well. Things were a bit more fluid, and this time it was much easier to float back and forth in the field if you kept your wits.

Hitting the hill for the last time I was in about 20th wheel, a position I was confident I could move up from, and I shifted to a lower gear for the steep first section. Then I got swarmed by about 15 riders from behind. Most of them found they were overgeared or ran out of gas, and after a little dig I was able to pass them again and regain my position. At the head of the field a couple of larger guys had broken away early, but they weren’t getting away and the top 20 were pretty much together. I was happy where I was and thought I could probably sneak another top 10 if I played my cards right.

Crash #4

At the crest of the first hill the Cuttin’ Crew train was busting a move on the outside, trying to get their man in position for the win. Not sure what happened, probably a wheel rub; I heard a drawn out ululation and saw a guy going into a full tuck and flying over the bars while sending his bike skidding to the right into my path. I Yell, brake, head for the ditch, trackstand; all on an uphill. Snuck through between the bike and the margin but that was it for me and the other racers directly behind. I pulled a muscle in my thigh trying to catch on, did manage to get on to the tail end and had a good view of the finish as we hit the final hill. 5 or 6 riders were fighting it out for the win, another 10 or so trying not to blow up and fill out the top 10 and another 15 in various stages of going backwards. I had nothing left and soft-pedalled home, still managing to pass another half-dozen or so bikers who were in a worse state than I was for a place
somewhere in the thirties.

That was it, exchanged a few war stories on the cool down, had something to eat and a couple of beers in the Irish pub, watched some more races and headed for the U2 concert that evening.

Looks like I’m finally hitting some form for the real season – Cyclocross starts in a week. Glad that I was able to put a silver lining on my miserable road season with a respectable result, but still annoyed that I was capable of competing for the top step of the podium and did a lousy job of enabling that to happen.

That said, I saw four crashes up close and managed to avoid them all. None of them should have happened – all were due to sloppy riding. I’m still alive and unharmed, that’s more important to me than any result.

While it’s great to have a unique course in the Chicago region, and Tower Racing did a great organizational job, anyone who thinks that this was a road race is fooling themselves. It wasn’t. It had the intensity somewhere below a Sunday group ride interspersed with a hard 2 minute effort every 25 minutes. The results say very little about riders road racing abilities – including mine. The hill added a different flavor and threw up some unexpected and welcome faces on the podium in all the races. It’d be great to have a State Championship that was genuinely long, hard and selective, like Iowa’s or Missouri’s, but let’s face it: we live in a state where road races are an afterthought and we have to be grateful for what we can get.