Cascade Classic Stage Race

Cascade Classic Stage Race, E2

33rd (6hrs 40min; 4min 37sec back) of 106

Teammates: Bo H., Ryan P. and Amy Lo (our team mom/Directeur Sportif)

A really small contingent of us decided to make the trek up to beautiful Bend, OR to race in the Cascade Classic Stage Race. The three man team consisted of Bo, Ryan, and myself. The Cat 2 stage race was three days long with four races: TT, crit, road race, and a circuit race. Below is my race report.

Stage 1 – Skyliners Time Trial

This course was a 14mile, out and back TT course that undulated upward from 3800ft to 4600ft.

I got in a good warm-up. However, I think I might have started my warm-up a little too early. By the time I was done I still had about 20mins to my start time. Usually I like to have 10, but they said it took 10mins just to get to the start line.

When I went off I was feeling okay, then I started to feel pretty crappy. I couldn't hold my usual power. I was struggling just to hold high zone 3 power. It felt like I was back at Sattley. I didn't think we were that high up, but it felt like I was racing at altitude. It probably didn't help that my gearing was a little heavy for the hilly (uphill) course. I probably should have gone with an 11-26 instead of my 11-23 (I have a 42,54 on my crank). Having some extra gears would have helped me spin more and not mash as much. On some of the steeper portions I felt like I was grinding my gears.

Another mistake I made was fixating on passing my 30 second-man. I was close to catching him on one of the steeper pitches, and pushed harder than I should have to get past him. Just as I passed him we were both passed by the guy who started 30 seconds back on me. This was a blow to my mental game.

On the way back I was hurting. It was extra hard for me to keep pushing zone 4 power downhill. Mentally I was out of it. I was having trouble getting into the zone. I guess I wasn't prepared for this type of reaction from my body. I ended up finishing 1:48 back (19th) from first place.

Stage 2 – Downtown Crit

29?C

This crit was in beautiful downtown Bend. The roads were for the most part nice and free bots dots. The course was "L" shaped with a sharp, slightly off-camber, turn on the back side of the course.

Originally our race was to be 40 minutes long, already short for a Cat 2, but they shortened even more to only 30 minutes long. I figured this would make the race really fast since we were only racing for 30 minutes; I was wrong.

The crit started off pretty slow. I was surprised to see so many people braking in all of the corners. I felt like I was in a cat 5 race again. Well at least that weren't as many sketchy riders as in a Cat 5 race. I did a decent job of holding good position towards the front and staying out of trouble. One guy crashed in front of me on the off camber turn. He clipped his pedal and over corrected. Luckily I was able to avoid getting tangled up with him.

There was a break off the front and I made a half assed bridge attempt with another guy, but I decided it wasn't worth expending the extra energy. The stage race wasn't going to be won on the crit, and the race wasn't long enough for any upgrade points. So I sat-up.

I finished safely with the lead group. I didn't expend too much energy. I could have conserved more by sitting towards the back, but there were some sketchy riders and it wasn't worth the chance. Both Bo and Ryan finished safely with all their skin intact.

Stage 3 -Cascade Lakes Road Race

This 74 mile course started out at about 5,300ft at Wanoga Snow Park immediately climbing to about 6,100ft before descending for what seemed like the whole race to last 20km where we climbed from 4,400ft to 6,300ft.

The race started out quickly. We did the first climb at a pretty good pace. After the first climb it seemed like we were descending for the rest of the race. There were a lot of small rollers, but nothing that would cause anyone to get dropped. The hard part of the race was moving up. The roads were narrow, and having the center-line rule "strictly enforced" plus a gravel shoulder made it really difficult to move up. Both Ryan and I were able to aggressively maintain our position towards the front, while Bo chose to sit towards the back and catch a free ride. Ryan and I wanted to be near the front so we could watch for breaks. However, there were very few break attempts.

At one point I got bored and decided to try and get in a break. One rider attacked and I immediately jumped from the other side and caught his wheel. Two others bridged up, but only three of us were working. We started to get a good sized gap, but one of the GC contenders decided to reel us back in.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. Things started to liven up once we hit the base of the climb. The final climb was a stair step climb that covered around 20km. On the first part of the climb I went towards the front to push the pace a little and see what would happen. The pack stretched out quite a bit, but came back together once the grade eased up.

At the base of the next incline there were a couple of attacks. I was able to go with them. Then there was another set of attacks at the base of the next incline. That's when I started to cramp in my calf muscles. I don't know if it was lack of salt or lack of food, but it really messed with me. I managed to go with the surges, but I wasn't able to hold the pace. It felt like my calves were going to lock up. I'm not sure I would have been able to hold the pace even if I wasn't cramping. It seemed like I couldn't get enough oxygen. I looked down at my power meter and saw my power in zone 2 while my heart rate was high zone 4. At that point I went into survival mode. I was riding just to finish the race and hopefully not lose too much time.

My calf continued threatening to lock up causing me to ease back and even stop peddaling at times. It sucked to watch riders pass me. Then I saw Wolverine (Bo) pass me. It was good to see that Bo was looking strong, and riding with the main group.

Eventually I was able to settle into a pace. I caught a group of five other riders. I was happy to see that all five riders were from the NCNCA district. All of us were suffering pretty badly. We all traded pulls to get to the finish line as quickly as possible. Our group finished 2:46 back from the leader. This caused me to move down to 38^th on GC. Bo on the other hand finished 1:41 back with the second group. I guess Bo had the right idea of hitching a free ride to the climb.

I was disappointed with my performance, but I also understand this isn't an A race for me. At least I had beautiful scenery to look at while I blew up on the climb.

Circuit:

We rode to the start of the race for my warm-up. My legs felt a little sluggish, but I guess they always do. That's why you need to warm-up - right?

Our goal for today's race was to sit in and try to conserve energy because this was going to be, or so we thought a race of attrition. We drove the course the day before. In the car the hills seemed to be really steep. That wasn't the case when we started racing.

I knew positioning would be key throughout the entire race. We were on very nice, but narrow, roads. The head ref told us he wasn't going to allow any this "flirting with the yellow line" and he would DQ people who crossed it.

So I spent the first 20mins of the race working my way up to the front. Once I was near the front I made sure to pay attention to what was going on with surging riders, and worked hard to maintain good position.

The first lap was pretty uneventful. I think everyone was opening up their legs. The second lap a 10 man break went off at the feed zone. I attempted to bridge up with two other riders, but one of them wasn't working. And after about two minutes I looked back to see the pack single file and catching back on. The break was eventually caught at the beginning of the 3rd lap. We all stayed together for the rest of the third lap.

The fourth lap the pace was steady, but not hard. One guy went off the front. No one wanted to take up the chase, or attempt to bridge. He eventually got a gap of almost 2mins.

The pace was pretty mellow up the feed zone climb. I was really tempted to attack, but I decided to be patient. Then up the KOM climb the pace went hard, or what seemed to be hard after 4 laps. All I could think of was holding the wheel in front of me. I made it over the KOM climb with the main group. I was able to recover some while moving up on the descent just after the KOM. I knew I had to be near the front going into the first round-about. So I bombed up the side and managed to get good position. After the first roundabout we had 1km to go. There was one more little kicker hill before the last roundabout. I got boxed in on the kicker, but I forced my way through some holes to get good position going into the last roundabout. Going into the last roundabout I was about 15th. Unfortunately I got stuck behind a guy who blew coming out of the roundabout and had to sprint around him. I ended up passing 6 people to finish 9th.

Overall I had a great time at this race. I would highly recommend doing this race. We were lucky to stay with a super cool host family who opened up their house to us and treated us as if we were family. It was really nice to see the Bend community as a whole come out to welcome/support this race. I'm already looking forward to doing this race again next year.

A huge thanks goes out the Tien family and especially Amy Lo for taking care of our team. Thank you all so much!

Thanks for reading!