07.1.2013 | 2:25 pm
A “Mark Your Calendar” Note from Fatty: Tomorrow (Tuesday, 1pm MT) I’m going to be doing a live interview with Kathryn Bertine, who’s currently working on a documentary called Half The Road, a documentary film that explores the world of women’s professional cycling, focusing on both the love of sport and the pressing issues of inequality that modern-day female riders face in a male-dominated sport.
As some of you may have noticed, three of my top five current cycling heroes are women (The Hammer, Rebecca Rusch, Jill Homer). And while only one of these three is a pro cyclist, I still love the idea of women’s cycling getting the attention it deserves. So join us. Here are the details:
Where: On SpreeCast, or right here on FatCyclist.com
Date: Tuesday, July 2
Time: 3:00pm ET / 2:00pm CT / 1:00pm MT / 12:00pm PT
A Note from Fatty About Today’s Story: If you’re just jumping into this race report, you should probably be aware that it’s now very nearly as long as a book. But you know, it’s summer, and this makes for some pretty good summer reading. If I do say so myself (which I do). So you may want to catch up by reading parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight before reading this one.
I don’t think I’ve ever had greater motivation to ride beyond my ability as I did on my final leg of the Rockwell Relay: Leg 9. I was in the position to either set my team up for a win by finishing ahead of Tommy of Team 91. Or I could set my team up for a loss by letting him pass me.
Which meant I was going to ride absolutely out of my head for the 36.8 very climby miles of this road from Panguitch to Cedar Breaks Mountain.
As you can see, it’s almost nothing but climbing. 4116 feet of it. Which — fortunately — I really like.
I am happy to report that I absolutely rode out of my head. I averaged 17.4 miles per hour — not a bad speed when you’re plugging away uphill.
I caught and passed the racer from Team Flowmax, which was especially gratifying to me, because he was one of the group of four riders I had chased — without success — for most of the second half of my first leg.
It felt like I had redeemed myself, somehow.
As I rode, I experienced this extremely strange mixture of joy and fear: joy that I was riding so well (I could feel that I was riding well), and fear that — at any moment — Tommy might come surging past me.
I watched as desert turned into pines, then aspen. With beautiful mountain streams. I watched the day go from dark to light. None of it registered. All I cared about was getting to the exchange point before Tommy did.
And I did.
I got to the exchange point, handed off the slap bracelet to Kenny, and then coasted to a stop.
My part of the race was over. But Team Fatty still had three more legs to ride. There was no time for resting.
Later, when I saw the results, I would find that I had reason to be proud of my final effort. I had done this leg of the race in 2:08, which is 29 minutes faster than Team Fatty’s previous best on this leg of the course (bear in mind, though, that Kenny did this leg of the course on a singlespeed in 2011, and in 2012 we had an alternative route for this leg of the race).
In fact, only three people were faster than I was on this leg of the race: with a 2:06, Team Red Rock Bicycle Company (which would tie for second place overall for the whole race); with a 2:07, Team Fast Friday (which would take fourth overall for the whole race)…and Tommy of Beauty and The Beasts, who was far and away the fastest person on this leg of the race with a 2:00.
Yes, that’s right. While I was having the race of my life, Tommy still put eight minutes on me. (And a minimum of six minutes on every other team in the race).
A Decent Proposal
Of course, when I handed the bracelet off to Kenny, he didn’t know how close Team 91 was to us (as it turns out, Team Fatty still retained a slim five-minute lead); all he knew was he needed to do his best to prevent Team 91 from further eroding that lead.
Or better yet, extending that lead.
The thing is, though, Kenny’s leg was short: just 31 miles. And only the first half of it is climbing, after which it is a crazy, fast descent.
And so, when Kenny caught the racer from Team Green Gecko 1 during the climb (which Kenny KOM’d, by the way), Kenny figured maybe he had found a partner — someone who could help him get to the top of the mountain before the descent.
But the guy just grabbed his wheel.
“I’m trying to build a gap on another team,” Kenny said. “So take a turn pulling.”
“It’s all I can do to hold on,” the man replied. “But I’ll tell you what. If you can pull me to the top of the climb, I promise you I’ll more than make it up to you on the descent.”
It was an intriguing proposal. And the confidence with which the racer from Green Gecko 1 made it persuaded Kenny.
So Kenny pulled the other racer to the top, giving him a ride the whole way, wondering whether this guy would be able to make good on his bold promise.
Bombs Away
Kenny needn’t have worried. As it turns out, the rider from Green Gecko 1 wasn’t a good descender. He was some kind of mad genius descender. He got crazy low on his bike and shot forward as though the laws of physics had just declared a holiday.
Kenny’s whole job, for the 20 miles of descending, was to stay on Green Gecko’s wheel as they flew down the mountain at speeds hitting — and staying near — 60mph.
Seriously.
And whenever Kenny started to drop off the back, unable to hang, the Green Gecko racer would sit up and let Kenny get back into his slipstream.
It was like being escorted by an ICBM.
Next Up: The Hammer
Meanwhile, at the next exchange point, The Hammer and the next racer from Green Gecko were talking. As it turns out, he was the one who had told The Hammer she smelled good back in her first leg of this race. So I was keeping a close eye on him.
Kenny and the Green Gecko racer zoomed in, handed off their batons to The Hammer and the next Green Gecko racer. Together, they had increased our lead over Team 91 to nine minutes, giving Team Fatty a little — very little, when you consider the miles and time that had gone into this race — wiggle room for the final two legs of the race.
The Hammer and the Green Gecko rider took off together. It looked like we’d continue to be working together with this team.
But we had no idea how strange this race was about to get for us.
Comments (24)
06.28.2013 | 8:26 am
Friday, traditionally, is the day when I write free verse. Which is to say, I ratchet the pretentiousness of my writing up about 3% (because, hey, I’m already pretty pretentious to begin with) and put line breaks in the middle of my sentences.
Yeah, I know you know that’s all my free verse is. I just wanted you to know that I know you know. You know?
And I was kinda half-sorta thinking about writing my next installment of my 2013 Rockwell Relay saga as free verse. But then I came to an important realization: I don’t want to.
So I’ll pick up the story on Monday. And — this time, I triple-swear — I’ll finish the story by the end of next week.
I know, I made a similar promise that I’d finish it by the end of this week. But here’s what happens. I sit down in the early morning and type a list of standout moments I want to be sure to cover in the post for that day. And then I start writing, deleting items from the list as I mention them, and adding new items to the list that occur to me as I write.
But for this story, when I get to what feels like a good stopping point for the day (about the right length, a good lead-in for the next major development in the race) I find I usually have about half of that list still to write about.
So let me revise my promise of finishing next week to: I’ll finish the story when it’s over. But I kinda think that next week sounds about right.
Even with a day off for Independence Day.
Rockwell Relay Race Reports, Elsewhere
Meanwhile, it’s not like I’m the only one who’s been writing about The Rockwell Relay. I’m aware of at least three other good race reports. Check them out:
Oh, and just in case you haven’t had enough, the Rockwell Relay guys did a cool video recap of the race; see if you can find Team Fatty in it (hint: we’re in it a lot):
If that’s not enough for you, there’s a much-longer version you can watch, too.
A Couple Other Interesting Tidbits
You may have heard that there’s gonna be a new TV show starting tomorrow. If I understand correctly, it’s about a bunch of friends on a cycling tour of France and surrounding countries. It sounds OK, if you’re into that kind of thing. During the commercials, you might want to read these interesting things, neither of which are about me, but both of which I am tangentially connected to:
- Luke Allingham’s interview with Levi Leipheimer. Luke is a 15-year-old kid who’s making a name for himself interviewing cycling bigshots. My connection with this story is that I introduced Luke and Levi and helped set up some of the logistics of the interview.
- The Missing Kimmage Defense Fund. Joe Lindsey reports on the intriguing tale of bikes, freedom of press, charity, deceit, naiveté, and fundraising gone horribly wrong. My connection with this story is that I’m mentioned at the bottom of the second page.
Have a good weekend, and feel free to comment in the form of free verse.
Thank you.
Comments (23)
06.27.2013 | 10:35 am
A Note from Fatty: I know, this is getting ridiculous. Still, this is part eight of my 2013 Rockwell Relay race report. If you’re not caught up, you should read parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven first.
I want to start this installment of my race report by talking a little bit about Team 91 — Lifetime’s Beauty and the Beasts.
For one thing, they were an incredibly strong team, one that never ever let us rest easy and say to ourselves, “Hey, all we have to do now is get to the finish line.” Thanks to them, Team Fatty was energized and focused, enjoying the most dramatic and hard-fought Rockwell Relay, ever.
Next, I want to say what those of you who read the comments have already noticed: they’re an incredibly friendly team. I got a chance to hang out with Tommy for a few minutes before stage 5 and again before stage 11 (I haven’t talked about that yet), and he’s been actively commenting (while being very cool about not spoiling anything) during the telling of this story. In every instance, he’s been a remarkably positive and friendly guy (who can also clean my clock on the bike). I haven’t really had as much of an interaction with the rest of Team 91, but you kind of get a sense from the comments they’ve left that all of them are fierce on the bike, and friendly off it. Which is just how I like it.
And finally, I want to point out that while all three of the men on Team 91 were obviously extremely strong and seasoned riders, the woman (whose name I’m afraid I don’t know), while clearly a fit athlete (a runner, I think), was actually very new to racing the bike. In fact, she had started riding and training only very shortly before the Rockwell Relay. So the fact that she finished — and in fact raced — all three of her stages is a major testament to her.
There’s something about doing a big full-day-plus race like this: you get to know a little bit about the character of the few teams you’re jockeying with. In every case, I found myself liking and respecting the racers in the vans and cars and trucks and RVs around me more and more as the day went by, even as I openly wanted to beat them on the road.
It’s a pretty cool feeling to have.
OK, now back to the story.
Dark Passing
I can’t help myself: whenever I talk about Heather’s stages of the race, I get this urge to dial her up and apologize. Her first stage was the absolute hottest, windiest, most miserable ride it could possibly have been: a physical and psychological beatdown if there ever was one.
And now it was 3:12 in the morning, the absolutely most difficult hour there can be for someone to get on your bike and race. The hour when when it’s coldest and darkest and loneliest. And your body just wants to go to bed.
And yet, Heather happily bundled up (but not heavily; it never got really cold this year), got on her bike, and set off racing the eighth stage of the race, which has an elevation profile that looks like this:
It’s not a super-long stage — 36 miles — but from mile four to fourteen, you’re doing nothing but climbing.
Luckily for us, Heather is an awesome climber. And while I admire the woman from Team 91’s spirit, during the race I was really glad that Heather has a lot of endurance riding experience, including experience riding in the dead of night, with lights.
Because Heather was having fun. With her bike working properly and much better weather conditions (no crazy wind, mildly cool temperatures), there was no comparison to her first stage.
It made a big difference.
Before long, Heather ate up the three-minute advantage Team 91 had, and — for the first time since my ill-advised solo breakaway in the first stage of the race — we were the lead coed team.
Strategy
Kenny and I had a conference (The Hammer, meanwhile, absolutely cooked from her monster effort, half-slept in the back of the van).
“At this rate,” I said, “Heather’s going to finish this stage with a fifteen minute advantage on Team 91.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know if this is going to hold,” Kenny cautioned, but I knew he didn’t mean it. “The question is, will the other racers put enough time into us that they can erase Heather’s advantage?”
“Well, Tommy’s been faster than me by a few minutes in the first two stages,” I said. “He’ll be probably be faster than me in the last.”
“The guy I’m racing against was a couple minutes faster than me in our first leg,” Kenny said, “but slower in the second. Let’s figure that he and I are a wash.”
“And the guy racing against Lisa put a ton of time (seventeen minutes) on her in their first leg, but hardly any time at all on her (one minute) on their second stage. So let’s figure he’s stronger in the flats. Their last stage is pretty flat, so he’s going to put time on her again.”
“And figure that Heather can beat their woman in the next stage, since Heather has the endurance edge.”
“So,” I figured, “If The Hammer and I can limit our combined losses to be less than Heather’s gain on this leg, we should start the final stage of this race either ahead of or only slightly behind Team 91 when Heather starts her final leg of the race. If we can do that, we’ve got it.”
We were both seeing, for the first time in hours and hours, a path to a Team Fatty win.
“Hey Heather,” I called out the window, “No pressure, but the whole race is going to come down to you.”
“Doesn’t it always?” Heather replied.
Bad Clams
With the excitement of this pass — and I think there might have been another one, but I’m not sure because, well, it was 4:00am and at this point I had been up and either riding my bike or crewing for others as they rode their bikes for 23 hours — we settled into our routine.
Kenny was driving, I was crewing, The Hammer was temporarily incapacitated, lying in the back of the van, groaning softly.
We were playing the now-familiar game of leapfrog support, and most of it is a blur to me.
But I do remember one handoff in particular.
Kenny had suggested that Heather, at some point, might like a Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso. The combination of caffeine and calories in a non-sweet, easy-to-drink little can make it a popular alternative to yet-another energy bar (just so long as you don’t drink too many at once).
I offered her one. She turned it down, saying, “Maybe later.”
In a few minutes, Kenny said, “Offer her one again.”
This time, she accepted it. I popped the top and handed it to her. She took one sip, made a face, and handed it back. “It tastes weird.”
Thinking that her taste buds had just been overloaded on sweet gels, I took a sip.
And promptly spat it out.
It didn’t taste “weird,” it was full-on curdled. As in, it would hardly pour out of the can.
I’m not sure how, but I really want to somehow pin this on Heather’s misuse of The Secret. I’ll get back to you once I figure out how.
Output
Heather climbed through the night, her pace steady as a metronome. Meanwhile, I started eating again and changing into my riding gear — shorts, a long-sleeve jersey over a short-sleeve jersey, making it easy for me to peel and discard layers after the sun came up. I’d be starting in the dark, but would be riding during sunup and beyond.
And I started getting nervous. This would be my last stage of the race — a very climby one at that — and if I was not fast, I could put our team in a bad position. I could, in fact, guarantee a loss.
I knew I’d lose some time to Tommy. But I just couldn’t let it be much. I needed this to be the fastest, strongest ride of my life. I needed to race like I was being chased.
Which, in fact, I would be.
I needed to poop.
Luckily, I knew there was a bathroom in the school across the street from the exchange point, and that the school was kept unlocked for this purpose.
My thoughts increasingly turned to this school as we left Heather and drove to the exchange point.
Once we got there, I yelled to Kenny, “Get my bike out, OK?” and I rushed to the school.
Which…was locked.
I went to the guy at the Exchange point and he said, “They were supposed to unlock it… but they didn’t.”
“Kenny!” I yelled. For some reason, whenever there’s trouble, everyone on our team yelled at Kenny. ”Drive me to the nearest gas station, now!”
Luckily, that was just down the road, and Kenny needed to fill the tank of the van anyway.
I took care of my business as quickly as I could. Which was not quick enough for Kenny, who said, “We gotta hurry. I don’t want to have Heather pull into this exchange without any of us there, like we did in 2011.”
I agreed.
We got back to the exchange point, I put on my helmet, reflector vest and blinky light (it would still be dark for another half hour or so, and — within moments of my being ready to go — Heather pulled up. 5:29 am, for a total time of 2:16. This was the fastest Heather had ever raced the leg, by eight minutes (she had done this leg in 2:24 in both 2011 and 2012).
I took off, racing at my limit. I didn’t know how much time I had in front of Tommy.
I just knew I was going to do my absolute best to not let him catch me.
Comments (31)
06.26.2013 | 10:06 am
A Note from Fatty: This is part seven of my 2013 Rockwell Relay race report. If you’re not caught up, you might want to read parts one, two, three, four, five and six first.
If you were able to eavesdrop on Kenny and me talking sometime, you’d find us adorable. See, he and I agree that our women have — for whatever reason — taken on the most difficult legs of the Rockwell Relay Race: The Hammer with the third leg, Heather with the fourth.
On paper they don’t look like they’re the hardest legs; they have less climbing than legs one and two. But how these legs appear on paper and how they work out in real life is vastly different.
Here, let me show you what I mean with a handy informational table, wherein I describe nice ride attributes in green, and nasty ride attributes in red:
| |
First ride
|
Second ride
|
Third ride
|
|
Racer 1
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Cool, sunny, possibly windy
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Dusk into night, warm to cool, possibly windy
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Cool, sunny, calm
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|
Racer 2
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Warm, sunny, calm
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Night, warm to cool, calm
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Sunny, cool, calm
|
|
Racer 3
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Hot, windy
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Dead of night, cold, windy
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Sunny, hot, windy
|
|
Racer 4
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Sunny, brutally hot, brutally windy
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Dead of night, cold, windy
|
Sunny, brutally hot, windy
|
Now, for the first — and maybe even the second — time we did this race, I think this mistake is completely understandable. But we’re into our third riding of this race now, and Kenny and I — well, we both felt kinda bad about the fact that our respective partners still each had two hard rides to do, in the harshest conditions of the ride.
But you know, we had urged The Hammer and Heather to trade with us, to take the Racer 1 and Racer 2 positions. But they had refused; they wanted their traditional spots.
[Note: the conditions shown in the table above apply only to teams racing at the speed Team Fatty goes. A much faster or slower team would have a different chart.]
Women can be stubborn.
So anyway, The Hammer had taken off at midnight — exactly at midnight, oddly enough — with a mere two minute gap between her and the rider from Team 91.
Of course, during his first turn, the rider from Team 91 had put seventeen minutes on Team Fatty. So our hope was that The Hammer would just limit her losses as best as she could.
But The Hammer did not know this, and was too busy to care. She had things to do, like putting on a clinic on how to climb blindingly fast, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, with a huge smile on her face.
Really, I wish I had a photo of it. Or of anything from this part of the race. Unfortunately, I am not a good photographer under any circumstance, and when I photograph someone — who is shining three bright lights at the camera and is wearing a reflective vest over her otherwise entirely black outfit — in the middle of the night, well, I’m just not going to even try.
The New Normal
The seventh leg of the Rockwell Relay starts with a big descent — which The Hammer completed before we caught up to her — and then has two big climbs before it rolls with a big working downhill to the next exchange point. Like this:
According to The Hammer’s Strava of this section, this is 56.7 miles of riding, with 3752 feet of climbing. Which means that, by the time she finished this stage, she’d have ridden 113 miles and climbed more than 6000 feet.
And she flew for the whole thing, saying afterward, “I felt like someone was pushing me the whole ride.”
In short, The Hammer had a fantastic ride, which made crewing for her a real pleasure. We kept up our leapfrogging pattern — pull alongside the rider and give her whatever she needed, drive to the next place we could find to pull over, then climb out of the van and cheer her on.
But doing this during the night was a little bit different than during the day.
For one thing, we were all getting pretty tired. So Kenny, who was driving, would cheer her on from the driver’s seat. Heather was getting some rest (and later getting dressed and prepared for her next ride) in the back of the van. So whenever I saw The Hammer’s lights appear, I’d jump out of the van and would start ringing the cowbell, always totally conscious of how odd it was to be out in the exact middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, ringing a cowbell.
Sometimes I’d look up while I waited, amazed at the stars on this cloudless night, away from all the lights. Just another reason to love this race.
The Hammer would then come by, usually giving me a “Woohoo!” as she went by. And sometimes a high-five.
And then it was back into the car for me, to rotate through the process again.
The Secret of My Success
Between the brief moments where we’d be cheering The Hammer on, everyone had their things to do: Kenny was driving, Heather was resting and getting ready to do her next ride, and I was…eating.
I wasn’t eating because it was the nutritionally smart thing to do, or because I’d be riding again before too long, or for any other reason that I was hungry. Without fail, a couple hours after I finish a big ride, my appetite wakes up. And it does not go back to sleep easily.
So, I was wolfing down slice after slice of pizza, along with probably half of a Subway sandwich. Just eating the food I like to eat. Drinking when I felt like I wanted a drink
I think this, along with the way that every fifteen minutes or so I was getting out of the van and thus keeping from ever really stiffening up, was a big part of why I never felt stiff or nauseous or otherwise discombobulated during the race. I stayed awake, stayed fueled, and stayed in motion.
There’d be time for sleeping later.
The Catches
As we played our game of leapfrog with The Hammer, we were starting to see another rider. Was she gaining on him? At first it was hard to tell. And then it was clear: yes. The Hammer was closing the gap.
Should we let her know?
I decided against it, based on years of experience of riding with The Hammer. She rides at her pace, and is motivated by her motivation. When we’re going hard in our daily training, I used to give her pep talks and urge her on; I’ve since learned better. She likes me to be her riding partner, not her coach.
She’d see the guy when she saw him. She’d catch the guy when she caught him.
Which she did. And as she passed, the racer on the other team stood up and did his best to grab her wheel. A futile effort.
The next time we pulled alongside The Hammer, I said, “Roadkill count: one” — a reference to what racers in RAGNAR call people they pass.
And then, about ten minutes later, she passed another. Roadkill count: two.
Were either of these racers from Team 91? I’m afraid not. But one of them — I’m not sure which — was Mike from team Betsy Was Right, who has written a fantastic writeup of the race from his own perspective. I hope he doesn’t mind me excerpting his account of when The Hammer passed, because it’s really good stuff (and in fact, his whole account is really good. Be sure to read the whole thing: part 1, part 2 and part 3, and encourage him to finish his story):
It was somewhere in this section that I could see headlights on the ground in front of me, which meant either my RV was coming up or someone was catching me. I was furious with myself. As the lights got closer, I could tell it wasn’t my RV. In the back of my mind I knew it was Lisa from Team Fatty, you know, The Hammer from the FatCyclist. I had headphones in so when she passed me I didn’t hear her encouraging words. I did pull them out because I hoped we could ride together a little but she had other plans at 2:30 a.m., like kicking my butt up the hill. Seriously. She rode away from me like I was the chupacabra looking for a midnight snack. I just remembered back to my dating life in college and her riding away seemed about right.
Where We Stand
When The Hammer had ten miles to go, we shot ahead to the Exchange point, to get Heather’s bike lights on and get Heather ready for her late night ride.
And then we waited to. But not for long. Team 91 — the Coed team we had been chasing — came flying in, sending their fourth rider — the woman on their team — out.
I started my stopwatch. In their first ride, the rider from Team 91 had put 17 minutes — a big gap — on The Hammer. How much time would he put on her this time?
I didn’t have much time to dwell on this thought, though. The Hammer came in three minutes later.
Team 91 had put one minute on us. Just one.
The Hammer had just done this 56.7 mile ride, with 3752 feet of climbing, in 3:13. That is an average speed of 17.6 miles per hour.
QOM, baby. Q. O. M. By nearly an hour.
Sorry about the boasting, but it’s a husband’s right.
The Tide Turns
The Hammer’s effort had given Heather an extraordinary carrot. Two-thirds of the way through a 500+ mile race between two fast coed teams, the difference between them was three minutes. That is about as evenly-matched as you can get, and it made for an incredibly exciting race for us.
Heather took off, and we set about getting The Hammer’s bike loaded, after removing the light setup — after all, the next time she’d be riding it would be in the middle of the morning and in the upper-80’s.
And I had a breakfast burrito, which the guys at the exchange point were making for everyone and anyone who wanted one.
Okay, I had two. Yeah, I was still hungry.
Then we took off to catch up with Heather, hoping that her bike was working better than last time (Kenny had spent some time working on it after Heather’s disastrous first stage).
And it’s good we left when we did, because if we had dilly-dallied at the exchange point for another two minutes, we would have missed the moment Heather passed Team 91.
Which is where we’ll pick the story up tomorrow.
Comments (29)
06.25.2013 | 8:07 am
A Note from Fatty: This is part six of my 2013 Rockwell Relay shaggy dog story race report. In case you haven’t already read them, you might want to read parts one, two, three, four, and five before reading this one.
“Let’s hurry up,” Heather said, as I loaded my bike into the van. “I reminded Kenny to look out for that left turn that comes just a couple miles into his ride, but I want to be absolutely sure he made it.”
I was glad Heather had reminded Kenny of that turn, since — in our first racing of the Rockwell Relay, back in 2011 — I had blown right by it, and had kept going ’til another team’s vehicle caught up with me and told me to turn around.
We made the turn, drove another couple miles, and — to our relief — there was Kenny, the blinky light clipped to his reflective vest rapidly bobbing up and down.
Kenny was turning an incredibly fast cadence, and flying up the steep incline of Boulder mountain.
Did he need anything? Nope. Want anything? Nope. He just had a focused look and the big smile of a guy who loves racing and is very, very good at it (plus, an open-mouthed smile is good for breathing).
I suspect that if we had kept tally, probably each of of us needed something out of the van maybe five percent of the time. That didn’t mean, though, that we didn’t appreciate having the van pull up and check those other nineteen-out-of-twenty times.
We rode on up ahead — and in just a few minutes, we passed a racer. We pulled over and started the timer.
“Just three minutes!” we yelled as Kenny went by.
“Just three?” he yelled back, and he stepped it up and went even faster. Which I would not have previously thought possible.
A carrot is a powerful force, and within the next fifteen minutes, Kenny caught the racer. There was never any question of whether the other guy would be able to hang; Kenny simply went by him.
And then Kenny hit the summit, after which it was all downhill in this shortish leg of the race:
He bombed down in the dead of night, his lights on full bright. Meanwhile, Heather drove ahead of him — at a speed I wouldn’t call “reckless,” but it was perhaps on the threshold of reckless. She was just trying to stay ahead, so if anything hit a deer, it would be the van, not Kenny.
And a good thing, too. At one point we did in fact startle a deer out of the road. Kenny maybe would have missed it, but it’s hard to say.
One Final Message
Once we got past the twisty-curvy stuff, our plan had been to shoot ahead of Kenny, leaving him to finish. But after driving for just a couple minutes, we saw a rider from another team, not far ahead.
His race plate said Team 91. The coed team we thought was definitely going to beat us, that we thought was out of range, suddenly…wasn’t.
So we pulled over.
As Kenny went by, we shouted, “Team 91 is three minutes up!”
Kenny found another gear. We shot forward, parked, and got the Hammer ready in record time. We stood and watched as Team 91 pulled in; their rider took off.
Then, just two minutes later, Kenny rolled up. It was exactly midnight, and The Hammer rode off like a bat out of hell.
“You’re two minutes behind the lead coed team!” shouted the exchange point official, as she pulled away.
The Hammer looked over her shoulder and said, “Not for long.”
What Happened
As Kenny stood at the transition line, catching his breath, I said, “You just put twenty-five minutes into Team 91. That, my friend, is some serious gap reduction.”
At which point the racer from Team 91 said, “I missed a turn.”
Ah. The notorious left turn (you didn’t really think I referred to it at the beginning of this post without a good reason, right?). How much of the 25 minutes did that account for? In the absence of someone from Team 91 making a Strava segment of the off-course section he rode, we’ll never know (but I’m going to guess 10-15 minutes).
It’s amazing how anything can — and most likely will happen in a 500+ mile race. And you just don’t know who’s going to win — ’til someone crosses the finish line.
In any case, we were now halfway through the race (in terms of number of stages in the Rockwell Relay, not necessarily in mileage) and were separated by our closest competition by no more than two minutes.
This was going to be a race.
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