I just want to race

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.

-Tolstoy

No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal,-- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality...The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

-Thoreau

Respect...

Sea Otter Road Race

Sea Otter

Junior 17-18

Road Race

5th Place

Hangin out before the race

Final pre-race advice

Whistlin' away a boring race

Sittin in the pack

Not happy with my race

Whose got the biggest legs on the podium?

The first day of Sea otter. I had got into town the afternoon of the day before and since my dad was working with Sram we got to stay in the Embassy Suites, it was great. As an added bonus, no school. Get to race the bike instead, doesn’t get any better than that.

So we headed out to the line. It was a later start time than usual for juniors so I had gotten to sleep in and it was a nice day. Not too windy and did not even need arm warmers, which is quite unusual at Laguna Seca. So the start line was full of familiar faces, lots of the big guns so to say. I guess you could say that the rider that I had my closest eye on was Taylor Kuphaldt from the Davis Bike Club who had just gotten his Cat 1 upgrade, impressive. He also had 2 strong teammates, Alex Wick, a great rider in his own right and I guess there worker Chris Stastny, who had beaten Ryan last weekend for the win in the Madera Road Race. So basically, I was going to need to ride on the defensive, I was all alone.

My dad and I talked on the drive out to Monterey about riding a little more conservatively and not being the one who is always chasing everything down. There was another strong team, Ride for a Reason, who I thought should do some chasing given attacks and I also figured the Major Motion would have quite a few kids out there. I was hoping to have the race break apart on the climbs, but to have it be a group that could duke it out on the final climb, as I was by myself and that was my best opportunity I thought.

The race started and I sat near the front on the descent, staying out of trouble with a big junior field. There were a lot of new faces and some looked pretty unpredictable on their handling skills. We hit the first climb and there were some joker attacks that were going no where. Then near the top somewhere Alex Wick took a flier, and well, no one chased. Not a single bit in the whole group. I was going to let him go because I did not want to face the horrors of the counter attack that would presumably come from Taylor and the ride conservatively all in my mind. So, slowly but surely, we watched the race go right away.

I don’t remember much else about the race; it was just plain boring and no fun. I remember one kid asking “Does he really think that he is going to make it 50 miles by himself!” I responded, “Well yea, if nobody does anything!” An old teammate from Swift, Bryan Larsen, who also had no teammates at the race and I kept trying to get a paceline going. No one wanted to work though, and then Rock Racing’s Danny Finneran would keep putting in stupid attacks that would do nothing, but screw up any chase that we had going.

At one point I was on the front with another kid and a gap sort of opened as we were just spinning. So I attacked and that got the field chasing for a few miles, but then nothing else happened until the last lap. Through the feed zone, Taylor attacked and Evan Huffman from Lombardi Sports made it on as I just missed it. I chased hard with no one else willing to pull through to bring them back. We went into the descent and at the bottom Danny Finneran missed the turn. I put in several hard attacks along the climb trying to get some separation, especially from Bryan, because he is a good sprinter and I wanted to get him away before the end. At one point I thought that we would bring back Huffman and I set up a pace, but brought nothing back. Jeremy Ferguson of Ride for a Reason, put in a reasonable attack before cracking. Then after multiple attacks and nothing gained, my legs were toast. I sat in. We hit the 1k sign and I couldn’t feel any sensations in my legs that gave me a feeling that I could hold it. I would only have a little kick left. I needed to at least get 2nd in our sprint for a podium place. The sprint started and a rider to my left pulled out his foot and ended his sprint early. It was just me and Bryan, and well, not the finish I had imagined.

Was not the race that I had imagined. Seems like the biggest race in North America, for juniors, well usually, would have a little bit more racing in it. Because we just wasted a day riding in circles. It was horrible. So much for riding conservatively. I am not going to let my races end prematurely like that any time soon.

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