Team Warfare

Last night was the final race in the East Hartford Training Criterium Series. After much discussion, Henk decided to have the riders in the 'B' Race (Cat 4 and 5, and myself) on CVC practice strategy and moving through the pack.
The plan was to launch a series of attacks and counters. The purpose of an attack is to quickly advance one of your riders up the road, ahead of the main pack. They can be used to create smaller packs up ahead of the clutter of 50+ riders, making a victory more likely, these typically take place later in the race and are very often unsuccessful. Or they can be used earlier in the race to wear out opposing teams. The other teams will chase to prevent the aforementioned scenario. And when an attacking rider is caught, if he has teammates at the front of the main pack, they can counter. They attack and start the process all over again.

I volunteered to fall on my sword and launch the first attack. Henk gave me a few possible scenarios and what to do during them.
1) A rider from a rival team catches up; Sit in his slipstream and let him do most of the work
2) No one chases; hold the pack off as long as I can. (A pack of riders can move faster than a single rider due to the aerodynamic advantage)

We decided that the first attack (me) would go 1-2 laps after the first prime (pronounced preem). When the pack would rest after a leg busting sprint for a can of coke.

The race begins, I'm sitting on the back of the pack with a few of my teammates, and because my rear wheel was slightly out of true, my bike was not handling as well as it should have been. I took a corner a bit too wide and bottled up the back of the pack. At the same time, the rider two wheels(two riders) back dug his pedal causing a CCNS rider behind him to crash. The rider was okay, his bike went on to a gravel road and the was able to tumble across the grass safely. I was sure the crash was my fault, Karen, one of my teammates, was marshalling the course in that corner and told about the event I described above. In short, it wasn't my fault.

A few laps later, the marshall at the start/finish line rang a cowbell, signalling the official race start, I thought it was my signal and I moved up through the pack of 50+ riders. After 1 and half laps, I accelerated out of corner 3 and charged past the remaining 10 riders in front of me. I screamed as I jumped out of the saddle building up a gap. Over the next two laps, I rode so hard I thought my heart was going to explode. I forced myself down into an almost ski tuck, for aerodynamics, and moved my pelvis further forward, to engage my quadriceps and deliver even more power to my pedals. After rounding corner 3 again, I looked back and watched the pack leaders just making it out of corner 1. As I crossed the line, the marshall rang the cowbell again, meaning that the next lap was preem lap.

I had left too early, it didn't matter I was still doing my job. As I came out of corner 3 again my lead had been diminished, there was a rider from a rival poised to get his free can of coke and one my teammates was chasing. With my legs cramping, my lungs burning and my heart trying to escape my rib cage, I dug deep one more time, but I didn't have enough left to hold him off. He passed me 30 yards from the line, it's okay I don't drink soda anyway.

I was caught. My eyes crossed as my body tried to shut down. As I drifted back through the pack comments ranged from, "Ballsy move, kid," to "Soon you'll be able to stay away for the whole race." In my semi-delirious state I couldn't get back up to speed, and was off the back of the pack. I tried to accelerate to catch them, but I had nothing left in the tank. Twenty minutes later I was back in the pack after being lapped, and falling back through it as the pack geared up for the finishing sprint.

The paradox of racing in pack is it's easier to ride at the front, in the back accelerations are magnified. Meaning that riders on the back need to overbreak and charge back up to speed repeatedly, it gets worse the farther back you go. Riding at the front is not easy either, you have to ride very fast with no one in front of you to catch the wind.

Me, a teammate, and the CCNS rider, Chris, who does training rides with CVC, got spit off the back of the pack. We helped each other limp to finish line, that's what teammates are for.

A day later, I'm still sore, I went over my limit for the good of the team. From the impromptu team debriefing, my attack and catch set off a chain reaction of counterattacks from my team and the final sprint was slower than it usually was, meaning we had succeeded and tired everyone out. Unfortunately, we forgot to designate someone to stay in the pack go for the kill in the finishing sprint. Nonetheless it's a good way to end our criterium series.

Now, I can fully focus on the, non-race, Two Ferry Century(100 mile ride) and the Jamestown(,RI) Road Race on Columbus day, which is the last sanctioned race on the calendar.