Pie-o-neers

My shells? Shocked. My bams? Boozled. My flabbers? Gasted.

Actividad matinal

Toodlin n noodlin

Group hopping

Okay, so it's a day late on this recap, so most of y'all are probably not gonna read this, BUT I MUST CONTINUE! 

Firstly, a quick word on Saturday's race: you may have seen the news that it was cancelled due to foul weather. I'm sure there are a lot of thoughts on both sides that span the spectrum between "Wow, these weaklings don't like a lil rain and cold weather?" to "We are completely and totally in whole-hearted agreement with the decision to cancel the race." I wasn't there, so I can't speak to much, but based on what I heard from teammates who were indeed there, to have asked anyone to have *ridden* on those roads, let alone *race* on them for the potential of a big result and the prizes that come with that, would have been a tall and extremely narrow-minded order. According to the accounts I had heard, the peloton would be going through fairly predictable turns at absolutely benign speeds and then suddenly BING BANG BOOM there would be 30 bodies just sliding towards the edge of the road. Cars were sliding out! Apparently there was one Euskatel rider who slid so hard into one of the rock walls that lined the roads that he actually broke his collarbone as a result. How do I know this? Because he had to share an ambulance with a teammate of mine who had also crashed and suffered injuries because, in his words, he "slid like Neymar" across the pavement because it was so slick. 

Now I try to give organizers of races a lot of benefit of the doubt. Watching my wife, Jess, organize an event for 4 years now has made me appreciate just how much effort goes into making something as complicated as a bike race happen. But, if I'm going to throw my lowly two cents into the conversation, I think the comments of the organizers in the wake of the cancellation are pretty darn silly--i.e. they did not agree with the riders/UCI at all, and they made it pretty clear with the riders that they were upset with us on Sunday when we went to sign in. Usually there is an announcer who is rattling off the results of the team and little factoids about the program and riders, but we were told that they weren't going to do that; that the organization was basically protesting the riders. Um, huh? What baffles me is it's reactions like this that makes me feel like organizers literally don't know what is going on in a cyclist's mind. We show up to races because we want to race. There are literally people here at your event who are not getting paid any money and probably had to find their way onto a UCI team with their own funds to get here at the shot of a result that could help them move up a level. But you can't continue an event in dangerous conditions and expect racers to "take it easy" when it gets a little sketchy. That's stupid. It's a race. The whole point is to go as hard as you can to win. That is the definition of sport. And when I say "dangerous conditions," the slippery roads and the high likelihood of more crashes it the obvious one, but Saturday's course was supposed to go up Puig Major, one of the highest climbs  on the island, which was literally inside of a raincloud at the start. If someone had slid off the road and, god forbid, go over the side, you would not have been able to find them, and there would be no possibility for a helicopter rescue because the weather wouldn't allow it. I should point out at this point that these same organizers who blamed the riders for complaining about the weather and not taking the racing seriously then proceeded to address the giant potholes in the finishing straightaway of Sunday's circuit race by FILLING THEM WITH SAND, I shit you not. 

I digress; this is dumb because, as a continental rider, it's not like I am in any position to actually effect change or make the call in cases like this. We are supposed to race in whatever conditions, and it is really up to the WorldTour riders to be the ones to speak up, so I guess I am grateful to them that they had the wherewithal to do so. 

Anyway, Sunday (today). Another stage of just being on the ragged edge all day. It's wild. By the numbers, today was pretty flat relative to other days, and roughly 30-45 minutes shorter in terms of actual race time than the other two hilly days, but I still manage to rack up just as much work today. The neutral for today's course is especially long (13 kilometers), which gives you pleeeeeeenty of time to get nice and chilly before your five minute power test that this course seems to have a habit of starting with in my limited experience. 

Flag dropped and we immediately entered a gradual roller climb that in any other circumstance shouldn't feel that big, but in my case felt like Alp d'Huez. I had finally positioned well into the shit-fight start and was riding consistency at the front as attacks were going, but because of that I was, how you say, quite fucked. Pretty sure by the time the break went I had more lactic acid than actual blood in my legs, as they were filled with cement and screaming at me to "FUCKING STOP PEDALING FOR THE LOVE OF GAWD." Luckily Colby, savvy guy that he is, motored his way into the day's move, which was not a gimme at all. 

Once the peloton (read: WorldTour sprint train teams) decided that, yes, this is a break we will let have some time up the road to contemplate their decisions, we had apprximately  7 minutes of we weren't actively trying to kill ourselves. Once those 7 minutes were up, it was back to the masochism, and the pace would be high enough that I was uncomfortable for the rest of the race, but not hard enough that I would just get straight up dropped. It is a painful existence. 

We got into 25 kilometers to go and Colby and the rest of the escapees were reeled in and swallowed up, and the sketch-fest would start as we entered the city circuits. The Palma circuit is defined by bad pavement and dog-leg u-turn up a hill, the final turn of which deposits you roughly 500m from the line. We would be riding pretty good position going into the first circuit, and would continue to do so for the next couple of laps. But all it took was one swarm and we were caught back int the cheap seats and it was pretty hard to recover from there. 

We would try and fight to get back into good position, but the sprint into the corners, sprint out of them, and then slow down and block the road cycle sapped our legs and would prevent us from moving up. 

However, with all that said, I'm proud of how we rode as a team. There isn't a whole lot of efficient riding you can do as a team of our level that isn't in the crash bubble near the back of the peloton, but we took it upon ourselves to do our best to respectfully ride next to bigger teams up front all day to start to open a credit line with them that will prevent them from completely hating us. I genuinely think our team has a pretty decent amount of fitness and firepower to be able to ride there most of the day, and I have learned that it really boils down to showing you are willing to put in some work to eat wind just for a better spot and not try some argy-bargy for a draft with a ProTeam or WorldTeam. They will default to despising you because they don't want to be behind someone that they think is going to drop the wheel, but I think we did a good job of showing them that we are capable of organized and not complete idiots. 

And I am proud of how I rode as well. I felt like a bike racer today again, and while I so desperately wish I could find that one last piece to find rhythm fluidity in the peloton, I want to believe that it will come soon...or so I hope. 

A couple days off now and then we start Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, which should grind me down to a proper pulp. Stay tuned!

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Sam Boardman

Challenge Mallorca: Trofeo Palma

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Pie-o-neers

My shells? Shocked. My bams? Boozled. My flabbers? Gasted.

Actividad matinal

Toodlin n noodlin

Group hopping

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