Winston Salem

Good evening and welcome to another edition of the Jet Fuel – Norco Bicycles blog bonanza! This week we raced in Winston Salem, North Carolina. At the Winston Salem Cycling Classic. Day one had us covering a Circuit race, through the outskirts and heart of the city. A grandiose course with rolling terrain.  Including a  2 km false flat and a steep 500m kicker, with a gradient of 10%. As well as the not so common but very welcomed round about.

The race  was typical textbook racing. The opening laps consisted of a flurry of attacks followed by counters followed by pauses of relief. This went on for at least half of the race until three riders finally made an escape. There was no immediate chase organized, the pace stayed high and the break had no more than a two minute gap at the most. With about 5 laps to go the race started to shatter and new chase groups formed and re-shuffled. By 3 laps to go our chase group almost caught the lead group of a dozen riders approaching the main climb. A flurry of riders launched themselves, some made it across many ran out of gas.  Team mate Ryan Roth was one of the strong men who  managed to bridge across. This would stick as the final group of the days race. Everyone else was just pack filler. There was still some good racing in the main field but clearly the pace had died down. On the last lap you could sense in the peloton that the race was over and we were all just finishers. Some racers still raced many just sat up creating gaps, for the pro teams the job was long over .They were saving their legs for the next days event. Travis Mcabe would end up winning the race out the the days break Joe Lowis would come second and fellow Canadian Zach Bell rounded out the final podium step.

The next days race was a Criterium that started in the evening . So fellow team mate Travis Samuel and I  had time to enjoy the beautiful Town of Winston Salem. The same way in which all bike racers get to explore the great city’s and towns and hotels we race in. Our day had us wake up to rain, great weather if you happen to be a fish. We got up and out of our lovely Marriott hotel lodging. Walked down to the lobby to see what breakfast had in store for us. For 10 dollars you could score a bagel with a coffee  or juice of your choice. We then back tracked to our hotel rooms to Google up local diners, grocery stores and coffee shops. You name it we Googled it. Nothing was close and if it was it wasn’t open till noon or later.  The other option was to bike 10 miles in the rain to try and find an alternative food source which was out of the question. We did however manage to score some premo coffee at a local coffee shop called “Krankies”. If your ever in the Winston Salem area be sure to stop on in for some kick ass coffee. The remainder of the day we ate oatmeal microwaved in Coffee cups. For three  square meals breakfast, lunch and pre-race. I was lucky enough to score  a salad for dinner (post race). Since we no longer had to worry about breakfast we got to enjoy ourselves. A typical Cyclists in this case will park themselves at the nearest bench, sofa, bed and stay there for the remainder of the day. Ah yes the wild and exciting  lives of a cyclists. On the bikes we are these tremendous acrobats displaying great feats of power, endurance, with grimacing faces of pain. Off the bikes we turn into Octogenarians displaying unimaginable feats of laziness. I must say though we did our laundry and a solid hour of stretching and core-stability work.

 Moving  on, the race was fast approaching, a twisty and technical crit with two long straight sections one being the sprint. The other was on a downhill, the rest of the race was uphill turns which gave a fun out of the corner stomp on the pedals out of saddle kind of flair to it. The field was around 120 deep, a lot of the field had not raced the day before or did not finish the race fully giving them somewhat fresher leg’s. All that being said the race was going to be hard regardless, I’ve never raced an easy crit. This race did not go so well, off the bat I got caught in an early crash missing the guard rail by  a hair. I composed myself back together and rolled in the pit area to rejoin the rest of the race.  Another 5 laps in or so there was yet another mass pileup, this time half the field was cut off from the pack. One of the biggest crashes I have witnessed involving half the field. Yet again we rolled into the pit area re-arranged ourselves and got back into the racing. Albeit when the pack is rolling by at 50 kph+ it is very hard to roll in from a standing start. The race was around the halfway mark when yet again another crash this time I managed to run over a rider and his bike topple over and have my bike intertwined with his. Like some sort of exotic mating ritual, the two bikes were inseparable.  I realized I would have to take off my front wheel to get out of the situation. Yet again I got myself together and headed  to the pit area. Checked my front wheel which only had minor scrapes and scratches, character is what I call it. This time however riders were starting to fatigue as the race was  halfway in. A couple of riders in front of me after being re-introduced into the pack could no longer hold wheels. I had to try and go around them and re-latch on. As I found out I too was running out of gas I chased for 3 laps but began to get distanced from the pack. Having to deal with getting pulled out of the race and becoming a spectator. I rode away with my health and no major damage to the bike albeit a badly hurt ego and the fury of not being able to put in some solid pain in the leg’s. Team mates Anton,Travis, Kevin and Ryan continued on the pain train. The problem being many a riders were fatiguing and gaps were opening up all over the place. It was constant wheel closing and then having to deal with United Healthcare’s diesel train in the last laps to try and catch the day’s 3 breakaway riders. UHC had missed the boat and could not catch the solo escapee of the 3 man break. They had a beautiful waste of energy to only come up short. As for the remainder of the day, we packed our bikes and bags talked about what crazy things had happened, ate and went to bed. In hunt for the next big thing,  the Joe Martin Stage Race.  Stay tuned and see what happens in Beautiful Fayetteville , Arkansas.