Ever wonder what goes through the mind of a racer during an event? Read on to find out how our Ryan Rochford overcame disaster, horrible conditions and fierce competition, and what he was thinking about during all the chaos. This is the first in a series called “Racer Perspective.”
Well, that was an interesting weekend of racing in St. Louis! Friday was a pretty cool crit with some really long straights and some pretty tight corners. Chip, Shawn, Whales, and I did the Cat 4/5 race and it was on right from the start. If you didn’t get clipped in quick, you were going to get shot off the back immediately. About 4 laps in they rang the bell for the first prime. On the back side of the course before turn 3, I decided I felt pretty good and was sitting pretty near the front. Everybody was slowing down for the corner and I chose to speed up and go for the prime from there. I went off the front pretty hard and hit the corner fast. I negotiated turns 3 and 4 with no real issues and began the long haul to the start/finish line on the front stretch. I looked back and realized nobody was even close and was able to take it pretty easy to get the prime. I eased off, got back in the pack and recovered for a while. They rang the bell for the 2nd prime and, though I didn’t see it, Shawn grabbed that one. Big D was owning the primes in that race. That 2nd prime was too near the end of the race and I wanted my legs for the final sprint so I wasn’t about to go for it. Shawn is more gutsy than I am!
Finally they called 3 laps to go and the pace dropped a little as nobody wanted to do any more work. We went into corner 1 in a big bunch. Somebody on the inside of the corner screwed the pooch and took out the guy next to him. The dominoes began to fall and unfortunately I was sitting directly next to all the action. The guy to my left fell on to me and I tried to push him back up but it was no use. His full weight eventually fell onto my handlebars and I was sent careening straight for the curb on the outside of the turn. I was completely out of control and I think I was going over my handlebars but it was hard to tell. I just remember looking at that curb and thinking this wasn’t going to end well. As I rolled on the ground, my only thought was to hurry up and get back on the bike and catch the pack. I stood up, banged my shifter back into place on the handlebars, and checked to see if my wheels were turning freely. Neither of them was so I tried to center/open the brakes on the front and the back. I got it to the point where I thought I could ride it ok and hopped on. As I rolled away, people started yelling “WHOA! Your rear derailleur is falling off!!” I slammed on the brakes and almost went over the bars again as I tried to keep the derailleur from getting sucked into the spokes. The hangar was broken in half. Race over for me. I threw my bike on my shoulder and walked back to the start/finish. Shawn slowed up and waited for me to make it up and ride but I never showed up and Whales I think got slowed down by the whole mess too. After taking a closer look at my bike, I realized I broke: my saddle, my RD hangar, my brand new rear carbon tubular wheel, and scraped the hell out of both shifters/brake levers. No bueno. Chip, Shawn, and Steve fared better and as a team we got our name over the speakers a couple times by taking those primes so that was cool.
On to Saturday. Weather was bad. This course was shaped basically like a boot and had some sketchy pavement with metal plates in the road, cracks, potholes, manhole covers, etc. Chip and Whales elected to race the 5’s race instead of the 4/5 race and not only managed to keep things upright but Steve placed 6th and Chip wasn’t far behind with a 12th place finish. I didn’t catch their race since I was at the bike shop trying to get my bike patched back together.
Shawn and I started the 4/5 race and it was nasty. Just wet and rainy the whole time. My rear wheel was sliding out on half the corners I went around. I was just barely clinging to control of my bike the entire race. After a few laps, the bell rang for a prime lap. Shortly after corner 1, I decided the pace was slow enough that I could probably go off the front and take the prime so I hammered it and got a huge gap. I pushed it hard for the entire lap and still managed to keep the bike upright as I bombed through the corners at stupid speeds. I crossed the line in first and then let up to fade back into the pack to recover. I sat near the back and felt pretty exhausted after the effort. I kinda thought I was going to get dropped but I kept with it and eventually started to recover nicely. Eventually the laps started ticking down and soon enough we were on the last lap. I’d managed to position myself very close to the front of the race and was sitting in prime position for the sprint. I had marked a guy who I thought was very likely to win and was sitting directly on his wheel. His pink socks made him easy to spot. We rounded the first 3 corners and the speeds were high but reasonable. As we went through a gentle chicane, I was feeling incredibly comfortable…right up until my bike slid right out from under me. One second I’m watching the race in front of me to make sure nobody gets away and the next second I’m sliding across the street on my ass watching a pack of cyclists ride around me on either side. I got up very quickly but had no chance of catching back on to the group. I just took it easy to the finish. A couple guys passed me but it didn’t matter at that point. Damage this time was focused on the rear derailleur from sliding about 20 feet across the pavement. It will have to be replaced too. I think I bent my brand new derailleur hangar too but that’s pretty cheap. Results: I ended up 30th and Shawn was right behind in 33rd. He said his body just locked up on him at the beginning of the race. The cold/wet is just no fun.
Ok, so onto Sunday. The course was more or less a rectangle with one of the corners missing, which added an extra 2 turns to the course. Didn’t see any other Big D guys out there this time. The weather was once again rainy and cold. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to race after the way my weekend had gone but I did it anyway. Goal was to not crash. Got settled in and tried to get my legs loosened up since they were pretty sore. I was feeling pretty good but there was a climb to the finish on every lap that began taking its toll. The bell rang for the prime lap and I wasn’t sure I was interested/capable of taking this one so I sat in the group, near the front though. We rounded the final corner and hit the hill and I’d actually completely forgotten it was a prime lap. I saw a guy take off from the front of the pack and remembered what was up and decided to go. I mashed the pedals as hard as I could and flew off the front of the group but was about a bike length behind the guy when we crossed the line. Pointless effort and I was hurting but kept the pace up. He and I ended up working together for a couple minutes since we had a gap. He went up to pull and said “what do you want to do?” and I told him I didn’t think we had it so we backed off and melted back into the pack. A couple laps later we were going around a very very fast, sweeping turn and a couple of ladies and a very small child were wandering across the road in between the lead vehicles and us. We all had to slam on our brakes and yell at them. One of the ladies had to grab the child’s arm and drag him across the street out of our way. Idiots.
The laps begin counting down, 3 to go, 2 to go, and finally 1 to go. The pace is high and I’m sitting around 5th or 6th wheel. My friend was next to me and said “Hey, you didn’t crash today!” I said “not yet!” As we get on the back straight, two guys take off and get a gap off the front of the group. Whoever was on front picked up the pace to chase it down. A few seconds later, I looked around the front and realized the two guys were pulling away. I pulled out and hit it hard. I went to the front of the group and began pulling the guys back in. I went into the 2nd to last corner pretty fast and my rear tire slipped out really bad and I was barely in control as I headed toward the outside curb of the turn. I rounded the corner with literally less than an inch to spare and kept the pace up. We rounded the last corner (a bit more gingerly) and at that point it was a race for 3rd place. My slide out had cost me too much speed to be able to bring the leaders back. I hit the bottom of the hill and popped out of the saddle, sprinting as hard as I could. I had my head buried down to my handlebars and could see my friend’s bright yellow shoes right behind me, slowly closing on me. I kept pushing as hard as I could and crossed the line about a half a wheel length in front of him to take 3rd. Turns out, after talking to some other people, the tires I was running (Vittoria Rubino Pro) are just really bad in the rain. The guy I talked to was a cat 1 or 2 and says he won’t race them in the rain anymore and neither will I. The unfortunate thing is that my tubular tires probably would have been super grippy in the rain but since those wheels were destroyed on Friday, I couldn’t use them Saturday or Sunday. Ohhhhh well