Lot of snow and cold days this winter. I didn't get outside on a bike until march 19th, which means not a lot of miles this year. Thankfully I did not let myself get too fat or out of shape over the winter and have a couple of good weeks in my legs. We've had a few Wed worlds rides, and I went to the death ride, which was a miserable, cold, wet day (in a fun way though), but hadn't done a real race until yesterday.
Last year the Speedwagon classic in Polson was cancelled due to snow. We still brought a group up there, saw all the snow and ice on the road, and went for an afternoon ride in Missoula instead. This year conditions weren't looking good at the end of march, so Matt moved it back to April 28th with the hope of nicer roads and weather.
So of course there was an inch of snow on the ground in Missoula the morning of, plus like 20mph winds. My ride up, Josh, and I both apparently played a game of text message chicken to see who would cancel, but neither of us did and off we went.
Thankfully things were drier up in Polson and 30 people actually showed up. While it was drier, the wind was still blowing and my garmin said it was 33f when I turned it on. I think I said "that can't be right" and someone nearby said that was what their car said also. One nearby weather station says the wind was blowing 12-15mph with gusts up to 23, another has the wind at a more continuous 23-25 all afternoon. Also the wind was coming from the north, which is the direction of the finishing climb. Sweet. ~3mi, 700ft, and a grade that just keeps getting steeper, hitting 10-12% at the end. Also it's a gravel road. But it wasn't raining or snowing.
Things got spicy pretty early on, with 3 guys from the Hellgate team, Josh, Steve, and Charlie, driving a hard pace in the crosswinds and blowing up the group. Thankfully Ivan and I were in a position to be with them and like 8 miles into the race it was just the 5 of us all from Missoula off the front. Then in the crosswind on gravel we lost Josh and Steve so it was 3 of us, like 10 miles into a 50 mile day. John from Helena bridged up to us and started pulling. I kind of wanted to let Steve and Josh catch back up but everyone else was right there too and John was cranking it (despite having two teammates chasing) so we pushed on in our group of four. Thinking back on it, better strategy for John and Charlie would have been to soft pedal and make Ivan and I do the work while their teammates caught up.
After the first gravel crosswind section, you climb up this short double track over a little ridge and descend on gravel which is usually really fast and really scary. My cushy tires improved things, plus all the fast descents were into the wind, cutting down the top speeds a good amount. We still almost lost Ivan a few times on his 28mm gp4ks. Then you're climbing again, still into the head wind, and at the top there's an aid station and John even got $20, which he deserved. Then you get on some zig-zagging pavement with a general tailwind that lets you recover and eat some snacks. Then it's gravel again, more varying head/cross winds, descend to the flathead river and cross a bridge, and it's all mostly uphill and into the wind to the finish. Ivan put in a little dig climbing out of the river bottom. I sat on John, Charlie chased him, and apparently that was it for John. I had to close a big gap into the wind, not sure if they waited up or not, but I got there instead of being alone. Big match though. That made it the three of us again, which has been a theme lately.
I think Ivan and I need to work on team tactics a little better. The 2nd to last climb, called the dentist, you hit the sketchiest part of the whole course, a steep descent on a rutted dirt double track. It is called the dentist because a dentist crashed on that downhill once. Last time the winner crashed there. Charlie sprinted over the top and attacked, as Ivan has those skinny tires and was struggling on a few of the other fast descents. Into that 15-20mph headwind we were still going over 30mph, I stuck with him to the flat, and sitting on allowed Ivan to catch back up. Then I attacked, making Charlie chase back for a pretty good amount of time in a head/cross wind. This would have been a good time for Ivan to go and keep Charlie chasing. We hit the hill together though. I didn't want to make Ivan work, Charlie obviously wouldn't and shouldn't have worked, and it seemed like I was on the front most of the way up. Subconsciously I was trying to will Ivan to make an attack. But the 1k marker passed, then 200m, and we're still together. In a headwind on a 12% grade that's still pretty far. I'm thinking, I'd better try to go, but Charlie jumped first. Ivan stuck with him and beat him at the line. It would have been really annoying to give Charlie a ride to the finish and have him win.
Still ok with 3rd. I have always had issues with this race, whether it be flat tires or getting dropped, and today I didn't even risk faster tires and had a 40mm wtb nano front and 38mm specialized tracer rear. I was so happy on the descents and loose stuff, I basically didn't have to worry. Charlie was on I think 38mm g-ones, also a good choice. I told Ivan yesterday to put on the vittoria semi-slicks he has but I guess the 28s worked out in the end. With skinny tires you are definitely on the verge of crashing in a number of spots and being able to relax and just ride over everything with stability is well worth the extra weight and rolling resistance.
The best part if this race is that afterward there's a huge buffet of food for everyone at the organizer's house. You spend the day feeling bad in the wind and then there's chips and snacks and stew and salads and cookies, pie, cake, beer. And it is a cool course. You are out on all these dirt and gravel roads in the flathead valley, you can see the lake just to the north in a few spots and then the huge mission mountains are right in front of you. Not one single car passed us the whole day aside from race related traffic.
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