The team competed in several events on Sunday at the Froze Toes road races in Columbia MO. The Big D “Keen Green” was out in force and really worked well together as a team! Read on to learn more. We have a few great race reports to share.
Our numbers were biggest in the Cat 5 event with ten. We had 5 riders in the top ten. Here’s the report from John Taton who finished 2nd:
“As most races go, it started off with a bang! BDT (Big Dan Turner) Myself, Twan Whaledoggy, Dan R moved right to the front and picked up the pace to about 28-32 range, with the tail wind. Being at the front, you control the pace, get warmed up and also avoid mishaps(wrecks) that happen towards the back of the pack. This pace really “whiplashes” the back of the pack, as they roll into you (drafting) and have to hit their brakes, then accelerate as the front starts to pull away. There may have been more of the Big D team members towards the front (dennis, Chip, Hawkins, Owen) but I didn’t look back, (hard to do when your 3-wide rolling around 30mph.)
Anyway, we started with 45 riders and ended up with about 12-15 riders fighting for the finish. As the pack headed east, we put a hurting on some guys and lost about 8 riders or so. The high tempo early really catches people off guard if they are not ready for it. For those of you thinking about racing, this is where pre-race warm up is very important. The pack was still pretty much together as we turned back south into the headwind. This is where it is important to think ahead……if I’m turning right and the wind is out of the southeast, I need to be on the right side(west side) so I can hide from the wind. After leading for a few miles (at the begininning) I basically hid in the pack, towards the front.
The long windy south stretch had riders suffering, if they were out in the wind or even fighting the cross wind. Slowly people started dropping off until there was about 20 riders or so. Couple hard accelerations by a few dumb …. thinking they could attack into the wind, actually blew a couple people off the back. Twan and Dan R pulled these guys back, but not really sure they would have made it anyway. Good they did just in case they were strong enough to get away.
As we turned back west with about 6 miles to go, people started getting antsy. It is almost always this way. Just be patient and watch the front. With a couple hills coming up, there was an attack (always happens in the hills). One guy attacked the first hill and put on a good gap. I know Twan and Dan R tried to run him down, but were not able to handle the hill. I passed them there and stayed with my smaller pack of about 5 guys. I had to use these guys to catch these leaders. Shawn Hawkins was with me and I know Steve, Owen, Twan and Dan R were close, but not sure how close. I just had to be patient and use these other riders up (stay in there draft). If I tried to run down the leader, I would surely blow up and everyone would just pass me. I had to hope the leader would blow up himself and these other riders would slowly run him down.
Well this strategy almost worked. This small secondary pack ran down 2 or 3 riders that tried chasing the leader down. As we started the last hill, I stayed to the right (out of the wind). Shawn Hawkins actually attacked there and spun up the hill. He almost made it before he started to slow with about 100 meters to go. I saw him fading and decided this was my time to attack this small group of 4, but had to attack hard so I didnt bring them with me up to Shawn. I figured they had been fighting the wind for a while and were probably maxed out with the hill. I was right. I caught up with Shawn and got on his left (wind side) to put him in the draft. He recovered just enough to hold off the approaching pack. With some “hard encouragement” from me yelling come on…come on….! LOL We crossed pretty much together and had about a 1/2 bike length over the other guys coming on.”
John Taton and Shawn Hawkins on the "podium"
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Next is the report from Kurt Wilson, who had a great result in the 4/5 race, with the help of teammate Shawn Knight:
“As the race started with the tail wind, the pace was fast as expected. About 7 miles into in, 2 riders tried to break and I went with them just to see if the field would react, which they did. Quickly we let up and set back in the pack. After turning into the wind heading south, Shawn, I and one other rider put in an effort to try to get away. Looking back, we could see the field single-file which meant they were chasing us into the head wind so we let up, and set in to start thinking about the finish. Turning west with 5 miles left, the pace was high, and hard to get a draft unless you wanted to ride in the ditch. Out of the 30-man field, the finishing group was quite a bit smaller. Not sure how many. Half way up the hill to the finish line is when everyone started their accelerations. To get the good draft to slingshot someone in the sprint, you really needed to be on the right side of them. With a good lead out from Shawn, I was able to pull a 4th place finish. (Thanks Shawn!) Overall, it was a fun race. Looking forward to the next one!”
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Kurt’s wife, Lynn competed in the women’s Cat 4 in her first ever road race for the Big D women’s team. She had a great showing for team “Chica-D” with a 7th place, in a race where the wind tore the field apart:
“This was my first road race and was not sure what to expect. The women’s Cat 1,2,3, & 4 all started together with a group of about 20. Kurt and I discussed before the race how it might be a little spicy going out with the tail wind. And it was! I found myself caught behind a couple of slower riders and noticed the pack riding away (rookie mistake) and bridged back to the main pack. The pack was still together, minus a few riders that were dropped due to the fast pace early on, as we started heading south into the wind. Things stayed pretty calm with a few failed breaks until 4 women got away with about 6 miles left to go. I missed the break and tried to chase them down but was not able to bridge in the stout wind. My last 5 miles was basically a time trial into the wind to the finish. There was no pack sprint in the women’s field just staggered finishes. I’m happy with my finish and learned a lot from this race and look forward to taking what I have learned and experienced into the next race. Thanks everyone for the support and I will see you at the first Perry Dam Race!”
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A few of us had just enough energy left to pose for a photo
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Ryan Rochford was the only Big D competitor in the Cat 3/4 race, so he enlisted some help from his friend, James Summers, aka “Skittles” for a great result:
“I was in the 30ish mile 3/4 race because I wasn’t in the mood to ride 60 miles in the ridiculous wind today. The race started in a different location this year, providing more of a “hilltop” finish. I stopped at McDonalds for some pre-race fuel and showed up to register with about 40 minutes until the race started. Luckily I had enough time to realize that my powertap hub was acting funky so Shawn helped me throw another wheel on right before the start of the race. The race started to the West with a short neutral section. As soon as we turned North, it was on…and so was the tailwind. We were comfortably cruising near 30mph, just getting our chit chat on. A few people put in some digs, yours truly included, but nothing that was going to break the group apart. I ended up rotating at the front with a few other guys for a while and then realized that was a dumb idea so I wised up and drifted back about 10 spots to relax. Things stayed pretty calm as we turned East, since the Southwesterly wind was still providing a nice tailwind.
As soon as we turned South, things started getting interesting. I’ll preface this with a conversation I had with James “Skittles” Summers in the car on the way to the race. We decided that ideally, one of us would end up off the front in a small breakaway and the other would not chase immediately (if too many guys go, the whole group goes). The other guy would wait patiently until the gap grew fairly large and then put in a big effort to bridge up to the breakaway and hopefully not bring many people with him.
Back to the actual race. We turn south and shortly after, Skittles goes off the front with two other guys. I dutifully waited near the front of the peloton to let the gap grow big enough to discourage people from bridging, but not so big that I couldn’t bridge it myself. Now, keep in mind the wind is howling, mostly in our faces, at 20mph gusting up in the 30’s. I let the gap grow, and when it looked about right, I decided it was time to get myself up there. Unfortunately for me, one of the guys in the break had a teammate sitting right in front of me in the peloton, happily blocking. Next to him was a rather large fellow, who seemed to have no intention of moving. On the other side was a not so large guy, but big enough to take up the remainder of the road and not let me through. I’m 2nd row, and can’t get out! Sh*t!!! I was poking my front wheel into any gap I could find, trying to wedge my way through. Finally, after about 2 or 3 minutes, I was able to get my wheel in between the big dude, and the blocking teammate enough that they had to let me squeeze between them or we’d all crash. As soon as they gave me my space, I gunned it hard enough to keep any stragglers from grabbing my wheel, but not so hard that I’d blow up halfway across the abyss I had to cross to the break. I put my head down and pedaled. I’d check my heart rate occasionally to make sure I was keeping things under control. When I saw 195bpm, I backed off a little. I was about 3/4 of the way to the break and didn’t want to blow up now. I gritted my teeth, kept low, and finally latched onto the breakaway. Skittles looked back and saw me and we both knew our plan was working to perfection. We were in a break of 4 guys and, to my surprise, we all started working together like we were best friends.
After a couple of minutes of working together, we had two more guys join the breakaway, making a solid 6-man break with a good chance of sticking. When I was rotating around the back, I’d glance back down the road and could see that nobody else was attempting to bridge. So, this was our little circle of pain for the next 45 minutes. We rotated the paceline fairly well, and I continually glanced at my computer to see how many more miles of this torture were left to go. We made the final right hand turn to the West, marking 6 miles left in the race. The wind was a little less brutal in this direction, but still not exactly pleasurable. There were a few hills we all climbed steadily, but nobody made any moves yet. As the miles went on, our friendships began to fade. We talked to and praised each other less and now we just eyeballed each other to see who was looking strong or twitchy. The paceline stopped rotating smoothly. We had a big enough gap on the rest of the field that they weren’t a factor anymore.
I knew the finish was approaching pretty quickly so I stopped working for the most part. I sat on the wheel of the tallest guy in the group, trying to rest as much as possible for the inevitable sprint. We passed the 1k to go sign and I was sitting 3rd wheel, Skittles sitting 5th. I was trying to figure out how I was going to shift as quietly as possible and get a jump on everybody. With about 500m to go, I shifted 2 gears as quick as I could and popped out of the saddle, gunning it as hard as I could to get a gap. I flew by the guys in front of me and knew I had them beat. Behind me were 3 other guys chasing me down and I just needed to keep my power up for a few hundred more meters and I’d have the race won. Yeah, it’s easy to talk about, but doing it is another thing. I could hear somebody gaining on me pretty quickly and got passed with about 200m to go. I shifted to a harder gear and pushed it as hard as I could. I looked back and could see one more guy coming pretty hard. I shifted another gear and gave it whatever was left in my legs and the guy chasing me sat up. I couldn’t catch the guy in front of me and crossed the line in 2nd. Skittles ended up 4th. I’m pretty happy with my fitness at this point in the season, but I guess I’m gonna need some more sprint intervals to get my sprint where it needs to be.”
