Joe Martin Stage Race 2012

Another Race, Another Road Trip:  After a six-hour drive, Davis and I arrived early enough on Friday evening to pick up our packets, eat dinner, and check out the Dixon Street strip.  Fayetteville, Arkansas, is a pleasant town, nestled in the Ozarks of northwest Arkansas, with lots of bikes on racks around town--more than Oxford, despite the hillier terrain.  After a quick meal and some gearing up, we took an early bedtime, ready for the first amateur stage, the Devil's Den Time Trial on Saturday morning--2.5 miles with 680 feet of climbing.

Stage 1:  Devil's Den TT:  At Devil's Den, 45 minutes outside of Fayetteville, competitors' cars lined every little turnoff, with MAMILs warming up next to every parking space.  We managed to get a good spot near the start, passing on the crowded Saris-sponsored warmup tent to spin it out at the car...like our lycra-clad elders.

Davis representin'

I headed up to the line and pedaled off on time.  It was deceptively easy at first, and I spiked my wattage a little early on; but I leveled out, until a half mile in, I found myself behind a pickup truck with a big trailer, just tooling along.  I gunned it to pass him, not wanting to spend any more time than necessary across the line, headed into a curve with downhilling riders coming.  Even though I felt pretty confident in my ability to knock out 10 hard minutes, I had also had a lame training two weeks since Battenkill--I hadn't really laid down the kinds of serious efforts necessary to exceed my standard 10-minute power output.  It was a tough remaining mile and a half--I wasn't caught, nor did I catch anyone, but I did find myself a number of times easing up on the effort too much.  At the 200m mark, I stood up and gave it a good solid kick, crossing the line in 10:12, a good 30 seconds slower than I had hoped. That was good for 15th, 54 seconds back of the winner, who was only a tad slower than last year's winning time.  I was lining up by the time Davis finished, so I didn't know how he did, but we later saw he was sitting in 3rd after a strong effort.

Stage 2 Road Race:  We had 68 miles to ride, but the heavy hitters, a number of strong riders all close together in GC time, consistently dampened any attack with more than one earnest rider.  A few times riders got away for brief periods, and the effort level did raise on the hills early in the loop, and I talked to the GC riders to see if I could negotiate a pace raise; but the top three were all doing good solid work on the front, and didn't want to get risky.  By the second time around, there was nothin' doin'--we were headed to a field sprint.  After one last attack as we turned onto the stick of the lollipop, 11 miles to go, everything stayed together to the end.  I rode next to a rider with a noisily broken nipple as he talked himself out of the field sprint--no sense risking a crash caused by a broken wheel.  At the sprint, a number of riders, including my friend Jess, went long up the left side--note to self--I've never really seen that work; a flailing counter came up the right, but I was blocked in and couldn't really catch it.  It turned out that was okay, as most of those riders began to pop early.  I slalomed my way into 7th, within a bike length or so of the winner.  I realized afterward that I just don't have much of a mental scenario for a field sprint--it's been a while since I've done it on a regular basis, and I think I need to mentally rehearse the timing and effort of the sprint.

Davis at the RR start

I missed Davis's finish, but he rode strong in the cat 5 race, helping to form up a lead group of 4 riders, and dropping the back two and nipping the other for the win in a sprint.  He moved from 3rd to 2nd in the GC on the time bonus and a small gap at the line.

Stage 3, Crit:  It was turning out that the real story of the weekend was Davis's run of success against the strong local cat 5s, so after my crit at 11, I got to enjoy my race afternoon doing whatever I could to help  Davis to a strong result in the late-afternoon cat 5 crit.  Our own race was slated for 45 minutes on a 6-turn course ending on a pretty stout hill after a significant false flat.  We were shortened to 40 minutes while waiting at the line for quite a while, and I went out soon after the gun.  I had the bad judgment, though, to make a move on a prime lap, and got caught between--I didn't want to compete for the prime, and the other rider was more interested in sitting up than working together.  A Dallas rider attacked soon after, but he was very surgey and seemed just to want to go solo, so I let him go and returned to the pack.  We got the 5-to-go sign soon after, and at that point I just tried to recover for the finish.

Trying to hold Jess's wheel

It was a pretty fast race, and I set personal bests in my 20 and 30-minute normed power...for what it's worth.  With three to go, the pack--driven by some of the GC leaders--climbed the hill progressively faster, and quickly cut into the gap of the four-man break, which had been dangling all race.  With 3/4 of a lap to go, the break was caught, and after the standard lull on the false flat, I saw a rider go off the front, and he turned the corner maybe 50m in front of the pack.  At that point, people started throwing elbows, and I saw Brandon move to the front and start stomping on the pedals hard.  Once again I was caught a bit too far back, but I managed to spin hard up the hill--I stayed seated until the end--passing a number of riders and finishing just behind Jess.  Brandon managed to catch the lone attacker and the second-place GC rider got third to move into first overall.  I didn't really see any of that.

The cat 5 crit:  After warming up, Davis got to go off on his crit, the last event of the day.  It ended up being the same time as the cat 3 crit--my only complaint about the stage race.  I positioned myself on the hill and tried to see how his race developed.  Davis rode well, staying right at the front but out of the wheel.  At one point he made a move, but the strong rider leading GC was not going to let anything go.

In the lead group up the start/finish hill.

Davis rode the race well and did just what he needed to in order to get the result he wanted.  In the end, the hill dropped all but a few contenders, and he got a small group sprint.  The rider in green, an older occasional racer, sprinted for the win while Davis took second, just avoiding getting pipped at the line by the UofA rider. 

Davis getting second--looked like third, but the UofA rider didn't get him until after the line

The strong (but not conservative) rider leading GC got another 4th, gapped slightly.  Davis's time bonus moved him close, but was not quite enough to get him the lead in the GC.  All in all, though, a great performance--bringing home UofM's first podium finishes--a 3rd in the TT, a 1st in the RR, and a 2nd in the crit, as well as a 2nd overall GC finish.  Well done!

The haul, and a few more pictures here.