2013 Tour of Anchorage
As it turned out, I wasn’t the only defector from the Sport Men field
for the Tour of Anchorage. A total of five of us made the switch. With the
exception of me and my teammate, Pete, none of us talked about it. It just
seemed like the right time to make the move.
The next stage was a return to the same Kincaid Road Race course that I
had quit less than a week before. I was not looking forward to it, but figured
I could gut it out. The first couple laps went well, until the “King of the
Mountain” sprint up Chinaman Hill on the 3rd lap. I was at the front
when the sprint went. Since I wasn’t interested, I let them go and assumed they
would slow when they reach the top. They didn’t. Before I knew it, a group of 3
strong riders had a large gap on the field, and the rest of us were still
gasping from the climb. We took a second to recover, and started pulling as
much as possible to bring them back. It took a half a lap and a lot of energy
we didn’t have, but we closed the gap and the pace slowed until the last lap. I
knew my reserves were pretty much depleted at that point, but I worked my way
to the front and tried to keep the pace high enough to discourage attacks. That
worked until the sprint, where I ran out of gas and settled into 3rd
place. For the most part, the general classification was unchanged, with a
whole lot of people stacked up. The next stage, a time trial, was generally
acknowledged to be the make-or-break stage.
The first stage was a relatively short (less than 2 miles) hill climb
up Potter Valley. The Masters field kept a solid pace all of the way up,
steadily shedding riders as we crept up the 5 switchbacks. I managed to hang
near the front without blowing up, which was a great source of encouragement
for me. A skinny rider made a break towards the top, but we chose not to chase
him down since he would give back any time he gained in the time trial. I was
in 2nd place at the last switchback, before another rider’s family‘s
cheers spurred him to sprint by me. Still, third place on the stage and a
personal record for the course (by a large margin) was a nice way to start the
race. The top 4 rankings were now held by Sport Men ex-pats, which made me
wonder if we weren’t the sandbaggers now. A quick glance at the results showed
that nobody was running away with the race, and the top 10 was separated by
less than a minute. For the first time I can recall, most of the classes seemed
pretty balanced. It makes for a more interesting race when it’s not over the
first day. In the interest of full disclosure, the time that earned me 3rd
place in Masters would have only ranked me 13th in Sport. I know
where fit in the food chain, and that’s the Soylent Green Class.
The next stage was a return to the same Kincaid Road Race course that I
had quit less than a week before. I was not looking forward to it, but figured
I could gut it out. The first couple laps went well, until the “King of the
Mountain” sprint up Chinaman Hill on the 3rd lap. I was at the front
when the sprint went. Since I wasn’t interested, I let them go and assumed they
would slow when they reach the top. They didn’t. Before I knew it, a group of 3
strong riders had a large gap on the field, and the rest of us were still
gasping from the climb. We took a second to recover, and started pulling as
much as possible to bring them back. It took a half a lap and a lot of energy
we didn’t have, but we closed the gap and the pace slowed until the last lap. I
knew my reserves were pretty much depleted at that point, but I worked my way
to the front and tried to keep the pace high enough to discourage attacks. That
worked until the sprint, where I ran out of gas and settled into 3rd
place. For the most part, the general classification was unchanged, with a
whole lot of people stacked up. The next stage, a time trial, was generally
acknowledged to be the make-or-break stage.
Since we had done the Point MacKenzie time trial and road race earlier
in the season (during the Independence Stage Race), I thought I had a pretty
good chance of maintaining or advancing my general classification position based
on prior results. Unfortunately, I completely blew the pacing on the way out, ended
up 5th for the stage, and dropped enough time to fall off the
podium. In fact, it was a completely new podium. The class was still remarkably
balanced, but the balance wasn’t working in my favor. 10 seconds out of 3rd
and 17 seconds out of 2nd wasn’t all that big of a margin, but I
knew I was going to have to claw my way back into contention.
A couple hours after the time trial, we had a 50 mile road race to
contend with. Without time bonuses, my time deficit had to be decreased by
creating a gap at the finish. While the rolling nature of the course allows for
plenty of attacks, they rarely are permitted to go anywhere. The attacks serve
more to soften up the pack for what is usually a sprint finish. Knowing this, I
should have sat in the pack and let others chase them down. I was happy letting
a single rider go off the front, but with the time gaps being as close as they
were, two riders attacking was too much. That meant dragging the rest of the
pack up to them until they stopped their foolishness. After a few attacks of my
own, I realized that I was a marked man, so we settled into a steady rhythm of
letting attacks go and then chasing them down when they showed promise. It
wasn’t until the last couple miles that we let an attack go, because nobody
considered him an overall contender. As we wound up for the final sprint,
people who I hadn’t seen all race suddenly appeared out of nowhere to make my
life difficult. I picked the wheels to follow, but when the time came all of
the effort earlier came back to haunt me. The solo breakaway barely held to the
line, and I barely held on for 4th. On the bright side, we had
created a 3 second hole between ourselves and the rest of the field during the
sprint, which meant I was that much closer to the podium.
The final stage was a 45 minute criterium, with 2 intermediate time
bonuses in addition to the finish bonus. If I was going to make it back to the
top 3, this was the place to do it. My knee had been quietly protesting since
the time trial, but I was able to ignore it. The race started with a bang, but
for a change I adopted a conservative approach, trying to save myself for the
sprints. We were just warmed up when our pack was flagged off the course so
they could bring in ambulances for an accident on the bike path, which involved
our race director’s husband. We rode in shortened circuits, trying to stay
loose and out of the way, while the paramedics did their jobs. When we did get
back to racing, it was decided the race would be shortened by 15 minutes and an
intermediate time bonus would be removed. My chances for success were slowly
fading. After the restart, it wasn’t long before we were contesting the first
sprint, where I was nipped at the line but still took a handful of seconds out
of the guys in front of me. After hacking up a lung and recovering somewhat, I
changed my initial plan of following the strongest sprinter to the finish to
following the strongest rider, who was winning the overall. As we went around
the final turn and into the final, long drag, my plan seemed to be working. The
strongest rider was out front riding like crazy with me on his wheel, and the
strongest sprinter was nowhere to be found. Then my horse ran out of steam, and
I was left out in the wind with a pack chasing me down. One rider after another
passed me (led by the fastest sprinter), and with that, my chances were gone. A
tactical mistake blew my shot at the podium. 7 seconds never seemed like such a
long period of time before.
In retrospect, this was the most fun I’ve ever had at the Tour of
Anchorage. Every stage felt like it mattered, because there was always someone
just ahead of you to strive for or just behind you waiting for you to slip up.
That’s the kind of racing I like. I entered the race a bit under-recovered and
under-motivated, but I was never bored. Having the fields so balanced made for
some exciting, tactical racing. Hopefully next year will be just as fun.
Now it’s time for cyclocross and actual pain. I’d prefer not to lose
any skin or break any ribs, but I make no promises…
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