Racing - August 5, 2014, CCAP Tuesday Night Race, Bs, Shelled

Ah, another Tuesday Night race. These races are the basis of my racing summers, low key, fun, and close by. Junior loves it out here with the other kids around (who are friendly to a much younger kid) so we try and stay here as long as possible. A massive difference is the puzzling lack of mosquitoes. In the past they were oppressive - if I stood still long enough to put the bike away I got bit. This year, not so much. It's not just here either - it's at home, and we live next to a very slow moving river, an area known for having a lot of mosquitoes.

Whatever, I'll take it. The cooler weather most of the summer, no mosquitoes… very nice.

This night was the "Ben Wolfe Handicap Night". Local hero pro Ben Wolfe would be starting a second back for every $10 donated to CCAP. Although the gap stood at a manageable (for Ben) gap of 2:30 on Tuesday morning, by the evening it'd increased to a massive 6:59. Even the 3rd best U23 time trialer in the US would have a problem gaining seven minutes back on the field.

However, before the main event, we took to the course in the B race. As mentioned before it's a Cat 3-4-5 race. Initially the 3s really didn't go for it, but now, toward the end of the Series, some 3s definitely come out to win. Our team, Expo Wheelmen, has had both hot and cold days. Generally speaking two riders end up our "leaders", meaning they want to do well, and the rest of us throw our weight behind them. A third rider, Heavy D, upgraded to Cat 3 and prefers to mix it up with the big boys in the A race.

With a decent but not overpowering wind, 90 degree temperatures, and a moderately small field, we expected a break to go. We wanted to work on doing teamwork leading into a sprint but it's been impossible to do that when the group blows apart or when the designated leaders are in breaks.

Start line. Setting sun - the days are getting shorter.

A sure sign of the end of a season is the lower sun at the start of the training races. The long shadows foreshadowed end of the 2014 series, just a few weeks away. The lower sun also increases the contrast in the stills, making for harder-to-see pictures.

Drifting back.

After a lap towards the front I decided to drift back. My self-imposed lot was to help out any newer riders, plus I wanted to get an idea of who was in the race. I say "self-imposed" because although I may have been singled out as someone that might offer "constructive criticism" to fellow racers in the B race, I still pay the same entry fee as everyone else. If I offer such feedback to any rider it's because I want them to be a better racer.

Optum Pro Cycling p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies racer.

I slotted in a gap in the line and realized I was on the wheel of someone who was, as I would term it, a "fanboy". I could tell because the rider had not only a pro jersey but also the shorts, helmet, gloves, and even the bike.

Except the rider was female and I know of no fanboy women.

Plus she looked extraordinarily strong.

This reminded me of the day that I did Gimbels and ran across a Rabobank fanboy. Who, as it turned out, was actually Marc Wauters. If you don't know the name don't feel bad - at the time I didn't either. It was only after I perused the names of the guys who got, say, 4th or 7th at Paris Roubaix that I started seeing his name.

View from Heavy D, with my camera.

At some point, for some reason, I pulled through, with Aaron and Nick, our two go-to riders, on my wheel. No reason to pull since there was no one away, my legs just got antsy.

Aaron pulling through.

When I pulled off the guy on Nick's wheel sat up, effectively gapping off Aaron and Nick. They rolled away, took advantage of the gift break, and gave it a go.

However they came back and a counter went.

Two riders off, the two white dots to the left. They'd come back.

After the two riders went the Optum rider went to the front, dragging the field along. Except she pulled hard enough that someone let a gap go.

Optum rider goes clear with one other.

Now clear with one rider on her wheel (I think it was another woman racer - there were a number of women in the race), the field needed to react.

The winning counterattack, up the left side. He'd win the race.

The guy that I think left the gap to Nick went up the left side. He made a big effort, bridged quickly, and set about trying to get the break established. This wreaked havoc in the field.

When he went I wanted to yell at Aaron to go with him but Aaron was too far away, on the wrong side of the field, and I decided to sit tight. That was one of my major mistakes of the night's race.

Fragmenting field. I was too far back and had to close this gap.

I found myself behind riders getting gapped and had to close a somewhat substantial gap. Up front Nick had responded to the countermove, going clear of the field.

Two riders (far left of picture), then three (just behind the furthest right white post), then the field.

At this point there were two clear, three chasing, and the field close behind. This was one of those times that a decisive jump could have enabled a rider to cross the gap to the chase solo. With Nick up the road, the break not really solid, I figured we could wait. This was my next big mistake of the race. The reality was that it would have been good to have someone go across to the chase before they gained too much ground on the field. I was too far back to do it and too far away from Aaron to tell him to go.

A lap later the five ahead are together and getting out of reach.

The three chasers quickly bridged to the two rider break, leaving five in the break ahead of the field.  Because they bridged the gap (the break didn't sit up) it meant the gap was suddenly getting into the "uncatchable" zone. With Nick in the break the Expo riders relaxed and forced the others to work.

I'm telling Aaron that Nick dropped out of the break.

At some point I looked up and realized the break had attacked itself, and the one red jersey in the break wasn't there anymore. I moved up and told Aaron that Nick had gotten dropped, but it took me a good half lap to get to Aaron. We already had two guys pulling and I went up there to join them.

Expo pulling but to no avail.

Unfortunately we'd practiced blocking in prior races but not chasing. Our efforts, although individually perhaps fast, were short and uncoordinated. Instead of pulling at a steady, sustainable speed, we made faster surge type efforts. Normally I like the faster efforts but that's to close a 10 second gap or less. I rarely find myself in a position where I want to help close a 30 second gap.

The longer gap meant we weren't going to bridge it with an anaerobic effort. We'd have to do the steady-freddy kind of work, the solid 25-26 mph time trial for 20 or 30 minutes. This isn't my forte, it's not my thing, and I never work on such efforts, mainly because I haven't been able to make them.

It only makes sense that I was probably most guilty of the surge type efforts, the third and last major mistake I made in the race. I am anaerobic as soon as I start pulling so I pull faster by default - I figure I better make my pull count before I pull off and try to recover.

The problem was that racers would leave gaps behind me. In a Cat 3 race everyone scrambles to stay on wheels because they know it's a free ride if someone up front is pulling hard. In the training race, though, riders let gaps go because there isn't as much riding on the race. This had the effect of neutralizing the surges and actually slowing the field down during fast pulls.

After my pull I dropped to the back instead of slotting in near the front.

Another problem was I would drop too far back after my pulls. Because I pulled too hard and too long I couldn't slot in third or fourth spot. If you watch the pros chasing the rider that pulls off slots in a few spots back. I was too blown to slot back in near the front. This caused problems since after another 20 or 30 seconds there'd be no more Expo riders up front and the pace would ease.

In all this time I totally forgot about the mantra that made working in a pace line pretty straightforward - 20 pedal revs and pull off. I think if we'd done that we'd have been fine, three of us chasing pretty hard, saving one or two for the counters. It makes sense now, sitting at the table, but in the race I didn't think about it.

Back towards the front to take a pull.

When I recovered and got up front again I'd take a big pull "to make up for my mistakes". This exacerbated the problem, splitting the field again and redlining me. I went deeper on each of my pulls, making things worse in every way.

When I pull off this time I was done.

In fact I was so redlined after a pull 30 minutes into the race that I blew up and sat up. That was the end of the race for me.

The break lapped the field, except the Optum rider. I think she sat up on purpose as she'd entered the race for training and she didn't want to ruin things for the others. She did a laughing sprint, sort of joking around, so it was obvious she wasn't perturbed about easing off the break.

I had averaged 179w for the 30 minutes. For 60 minutes I averaged 122 watts, which means that I rolled around at about 70 watts for about 30 minutes.

I did jump back in to tell Aaron to look out for the CCB racer - he's the one that I think left the gap to Nick when I did my big pull, and he read the winning move properly. It meant he had a lot of experience. I also felt he was the strongest sprinter in the group. However the CCB rider seemed to be marking Aaron so I never got a chance to tell him. At 2 to go I was told I had one more lap so I eased up, let the small field go, and prepared to do a practice sprint.

With a cross-headwind going into the final straight, turning into a crosswind, I didn't think I'd be very good. Still, though, I wanted to do a big effort. I didn't jump super hard as I wanted to finish strong, but the numbers don't lie. I jumped pretty hard, peaking at 1100w, holding 1020 watts for 5 seconds. This means a really flat sprint curve, not as peaky as I normally do.

Practice sprint - bike tilting right.

Practice sprint - bike tilting left.

I think that I was moving right to set up for the left curve in the sprint, hence the emphasis on the right side tilt. I blew up well before the line so sat up and coasted in. I didn't bother doing a lap, I just rolled up to the sidewalk and over to the Missus and Junior.

The Expo hang out area. Both the Missus and Junior are in there somewhere.

I stopped and watched the finish of the Bs. Aaron won the field sprint with the CCB rider in second (and winning the race).

Then we all sat and waited for Ben to go chase the field. At 2:30 the gap was realistic but, with all due respect, 6:59 would be undoable. Therefore all of us fans were there just to watch yet another display of immense power and speed. Ben didn't disappoint, catching the field in about 12 minutes (he started at 6:19 PM and caught them at 6:31 PM). After taking another lap with Expo rider Todd I think that was it.

6:19 PM, Ben starts.

6:31 PM and he's catching the tail end of the field. He'd be leading a lap later.

During the A race I realized that I could barely hold Junior - my back was just short of failing, like wiggly-quivering-about-to-collapse. The Missus held Junior so that he could be at "my level" - he wanted me to hold him but I just couldn't do it. I think that my thoughts on my lack of core strength make some sense. As I said previously this means starting some kind of regular core strengthening exercise program.

Aaron and I chatted a bit about the race. Obviously we were disappointed that the team didn't work well. Missing the break exposed one of Expo's weaknesses, that of being able to chase. It didn't matter how we got there, the fact was that once in that situation we failed to pull back the break or even make a decent show of it.

Aaron pointed out something else pretty clear to him and probably to others - had I been training a bit more I'd have been able to pull through, pull off, and get back in, ready to pull again. Instead my pulls blew me up and shelled me. The lack of training really made a mark here in my lack of recovery.

So in addition to losing weight and strengthening my core I also need to train more.

Jeepers.

Racing - Getting A Sponsor

It's that time of year, the time when clubs and races need to re-up for next year. Some racers/riders even start thinking about starting up their own club/team/race. Inevitably the whole topic of money comes up. It costs money to hold a race. It costs money to buy race kits. It costs money just to buy club jerseys.

So the question is, can we get sponsors to help offset the costs?

Well, that's a good question.

Okay, first off, sponsors can give you either money or merchandise or discounts on merchandise you buy. Money sponsors are the Holy Grail - that's what makes teams and clubs work. Merchandise sponsors, not as much. If it's a shop that's offering a discount they're losing potential profit but as long as the riders pay whatever they're supposed to pay there usually isn't any cost to the shop, especially if the shop makes an agreement with their vendor/s.

This isn't to undervalue shop sponsorships, it's just pointing out that selling stuff at close to cost is very, very different from giving that stuff away, and significantly different from writing a check.

Clubs, especially the larger ones, may work out a deal with the custom clothing companies to get a break on price. Such discounts can be passed on to the members, saving the members money.

That's all good but there will still be costs. Typically you'll need to do some artwork, they may/will be some legal/federation fees to make the club/team official, and you may want to start up a website (domain and hosting fees).

To pay for that stuff you either need to charge dues, make money for the club/team through some kind of activity (bike race, bike ride, bake sale, whatever), or find a money sponsor.

Money sponsors come in two flavors:

1. Loves cycling, just wants an excuse to spend money to see their logo/name on a kit.

Usually this is a rider who also happens to own a business, or whose employer decides that part of that employee's expense could be some money thrown at a bike team. Typical are the sponsors of a club I ran many years ago - the car place was owned by a rider's dad. The tooth place was owned by a rider. A clothing designer (Alexander Julian) designed the colors - he was a client of a team member.

The jersey described above.

The sponsor doesn't expect to get anything out of it. This kind of sponsor might be good for a small club, where it's relatively small amounts of money, $500 here, $1000 there. In our case we needed to cover very expensive artwork fees. Any leftovers went to reducing the cost per piece to the members. The clothing wasn't free but it was certainly less expensive than it could have been.

These charitable sponsors also works for ultra-huge teams, like BMC (Andy Rihs, CEO of Phonak, also owns BMC) or Mapei (whose owner was a cycling fanatic). High Road was personally sponsored by Bob Stapleton; Slipstream is Doug Ellis. These people have money and passion and decided to put some of their money up to do what they wanted to do, what they thought was right, or because they wanted a bike team.

It's sort of like a cheap version of sponsoring an F1 driver - some drivers have personal sponsors to the tune of millions of Euros. Currently at least one of those drivers is sponsored by his dad, and since his dad is essentially buying the team, the son may/will get one of the two cars in 2014.

2. Actual business sponsor. This kind of sponsor wants a return on their money.

You don't need to know the sponsor - you just need to make them a lot of money. Sometimes a sponsor may be a combination of both, but a charitable sponsor won't be as demanding as an actual business sponsor.

How do you attract an actual business sponsor?

Show them the money.

Go to your local bank, ask for $10k in sponsorship. They'll ask you, what will you get me? If you can show them that you'll get, say, 10 times as many eyeballs on their logo if they give you the $10k instead of taking out 10 ads in local papers then they might give you the money. Figure around here a typical newspaper might have a 100,000 circulation number, so 10 ads is 1,000,000 pairs of eyeballs (at least in terms of marketing).

Now think of how you'll get 1,000,000 pairs of eyes on the bank's logo if they gave you the $10,000. If you figure that out with a cycling club and you can prove it to the bank then you'll probably get sponsorship. A long time ago a friend tried getting sponsorship from a bank and that's the response he got from an understanding manager.

Another example - go to a large corporation, like a GE or similar. A lot of times they'll give you, say, $50k, no problem, with one catch - you have to donate the same amount to a charitable organization. It's not really sponsorship, right? Or is it? It's basically seed money to earn more than $50k so you can use the change to cover costs or even make money. This is how it worked a little while ago, in a city chock full of big corporations. They were very free with their "charitable" money but I had to donate that amount to a charity to get the money. Since I couldn't really do much with the money if I had to give it all away I decided not to pursue that avenue.

So how do you get sponsorship?

First you need to think small or big. I'm defining small as anything under $10,000, and realistically anything under $5,000. Big is anything over $10,000 and realistically anything over $30,0000. For some reason I never hear of a sponsor that gives $10,000. It's either $1,000 or $30,000. That may be me, though, so don't take it as a rule chiseled in stone.

Anyway, if you're thinking small then it's not too bad. Find a cycling nut who can throw $500 or $1000 your way. The guy that drives the S8 to the group ride might want to put his favorite business on the jersey, or maybe just a bird or his son's artwork or something. Whatever, if you can make it work then so be it.

For example one of our sponsors was a nightclub owned by a really serious mountain biker. He didn't like TV so he had a "No TV" logo (TV with the red circle and slash through it) on our jerseys. That's what he wanted and he paid for it. I should point out he had logos on the side of our jersey but those, too, were hard to figure out.

The "No TV" symbol on my shoulder, sometime between 1989 and 1992.

If you want something a bit more then you need to do some work. Figure out what kind of market your club would appeal to and go to those business. For example, the guy that shows up on the club ride driving his landscape business pick up truck, see if he'll sponsor the club. See if there are riders who use a landscaping business for their home or business and see if they'll switch.

Do you meet at a coffee shop every Saturday morning? See if they'll throw something your way. Ask them to pay for the artwork (usually it's a major unexpected-to-new-clubs cost), maybe help pay for some of the kit. If you're looking for a merchandise sponsor this may be the thing - can they give you free coffee with every egg sandwich?

Look around the parking lot when you do a club ride. Do you see a lot of Lexus/Acuras? Pick up trucks? Big SUVs? Start thinking creatively. Approach a Chevy dealer, tell them, "Look, when I look around our group ride parking lot I used to see a lot of Suburbans but now I'm seeing cars like the Prius. You want to sponsor our club? $1000 cash to the club to be on our jersey plus a substantial discount on Suburbans or any other Chevy if a club member buys one. We all ride $3000-10,000 bikes so a $50k Suburban is not out of reach, it's just they need an excuse to buy one. What do you say?"

Think of how much money the dealer makes. If they get one sale out of it they'll pay for their sponsorship. Maybe you should ask for more!

Seriously, though, you need to consider the sponsor's side of the equation. If you can make the sponsor at least as much profit as they're giving you (so if they give you $1000 then you sell enough stuff that they make $1000 profit), it makes it easy for the sponsor to give you money.

Heck, if someone said to you, "Hey, if you front me $1000 I'll make you $1500 by the end of the summer," it'd be worth thinking about.

Well, as long as that someone isn't in Nigeria.

If you're thinking big then you have a lot of work ahead of you. Since I'm not qualified to address big sponsorship deals (I'm saying anything into the 5 digits, and definitely 6 digit range) I really can't say much about it.

It's easy to get sponsorship if you make that business money. It's harder if you can't show that they'll make way more money back then they give you.

Tactics - Leadouts

I was thinking about some things from my "getting led out" days. I learned a lot of things the hard way - leadout guy dropping the sprinter (me), leadout guy can't find sprinter or vice versa, leadout guy blows up way too early (once a leadout guy Mike blew at the bell - not a great set up for the finish but I won the field sprint, sort of... I think that's for a different post), things like that.

A leadout (pronounced "leed-out", as in "to lead out", not "led-out") is a racing tactic where a team sacrifices the chances of one or more racers in order to improve the team sprinter's chances. Or, if you're David Millar and you're racing on a team without a good sprinter, the leadout may come from a friendly opponent (David) who volunteers to help out another team's sprinter without a good leadout (Baden Cooke) because they're friends!

A proper leadout works because the sacrificial racers (the "Leadout" racers) raise the speed of the race so high that it is very difficult for rival sprinters to move up in the field. This requires the Leadout's Sprinter to be in place near the front when the leadout begins. It also requires a pace so high the field is forced in single file for at least the first 15 or 20 racers - and on a really smoking leadout, perhaps the first 50 or 60 racers.

For a Cat 3 race on an average course (not too much wind, sort of flat), I'd expect a good leadout to hum along at 35-37 mph at the start, accelerating to perhaps 38 to almost 40 mph. With leadouts in the low 40's I for one have problems hanging on for more than a couple hundred meters. This is where a Cancellera can do a bit of damage and ride away from everyone for a spectacular stage win.

If you were stuck 10 spots back and the pace suddenly hotted up to 38+ mph, you can imagine how hard it would be to try and move up. Conversely, if you were the Sprinter and you were sitting 3rd wheel, you can imagine what sort of advantage you'd have if you got launched from such a leadout at 150 meters to go.

The problem with leadouts is that everyone knows what's happening and so everyone makes a huge effort to get into a good spot. If the leadout is going less than a zillion miles an hour, the leadout racers will get swarmed by rival sprinters and leadout racers looking to use your leadout to their benefit.

It's absolutely critical to leadout in such a way that all anyone can think of is just to hang onto the wheel in front. If they're thinking like that they're not thinking of blasting past your sprinter.

Twice I watched a very strong and numerically superior Pro/1 team annihilate themselves to lead out their sprinter for a number of laps (5 or more), only to see a rival team pop up with 500 meters to go and take the win. In those Pro/1 leadouts, the teams only held 35 mph or so - and you could see the swarm of opportunists waiting to pounce.

The ones that won those races? When they went, they were going so fast that they virtually gapped the field with the leadout. The sprint was a mere formality - the race was won with the leadout.

Controlling the race for 5 laps in a crit may be really cool for advertising pictures but it doesn't get you wins, not unless you're also going so fast that no one can move up. It's better if you simply have a "fast as greased lightning" leadout guy who can peg the cyclometer for 300 meters.

There are lots of little things that help make leadouts work. Keep in mind the Leadout has to know the Sprinter is okay - otherwise the Leadout will not know what to do. And oftentimes the efforts generated by both are such that superfluous talk is out of the question.

With that in mind, here are some tips:

 - Back in the day I wrapped some tape around my fork just above the dropouts - orange or pink or some bright color. My Leadout would look down to see if my forks were there. If not he'd ease and try and find me (or let me find him).

 - The Sprinter is the director. The Leadout guy does what the Sprinter says. Once the Sprinter is on the Leadout's wheel, the Sprinter dictates what happens. If the Sprinter sees a surge coming up the left side, he should yell "LEFT!". And the Leadout starts to move left (not cut across the road but look and start moving in anticipation of either sitting on the surge or closing the door on the surge). - The Sprinter should have a bailout call, i.e. when he loses the wheel. "STOP" or "MIKE" (my first leadout guy) something like that works.

 - Sprinters are usually not as strong as their leadout men. I've been close to dropped by my leadout guys. I'd have to tell them to "EASE" at times. But then when it's 400-500 meters to go, I have to tell them to "GO GO GO" and really crank the pace.

 - The Sprinter should also have a "keep going" call. Just because you have a leadout doesn't mean you have to have the Sprinter on the Leadout's wheel. This is especially true in the Cat 3-5 as a leadout can get swamped if it's not fast enough. A slower leadout (i.e. only first 6 or 8 are single file - typically under 35-37 mph) means the sprinter may have to sit 3-4 back in order to get protection as the front 6 or 8 guys are eating a lot of wind even on other racers' wheels. The slow leadout means there's a high chance the leadout will fail - in which case the leadout is really more of a "string the field out so it's easier for Sprinter to keep his spot." In this case the sprinter should have another call "GO GO GO" or something like that. Don't use the same words in different calls - "Mike, Stop" and "Mike, Go" can sound the same to a oxygen-bankrupted brain.

 - All this is great planning and all that but you have to practice this in the heat of the moment. You can rehearse having sex all you want - but there's nothing like having sex for the first time to wake you up to the realities of what is involved. Leadouts can be practiced in theory but there are only two places you can really work on them - in competitive group rides and in races. Competitive group rides means there are other sprinters (and possibly leadout men) who really want to beat you and your sprinter to the line - so they'll use your leadout, take the sprinter off your wheel, box him in, etc etc etc just like a race.

 - Ideally the Sprinter should have a Sweeper on his wheel. The Sweeper "sweeps" the back wheel of the Sprinter, preventing things (like other Sprinters) from sticking to it. The Sweeper should ideally be a tactically astute racer (probably a sprinter) who has elected to help the cause instead of trying for a top finish. That's a whole different post but sweeping, done right, is safe for everyone and extremely effective when used with a proper leadout.

 - The Leadout should anticipate sprinting to an imaginary line before the finish, probably 150 meters before it (on a finish that heads uphill, the leadout might end earlier as it's hard to accelerate uphill). If the Leadout is slower than an all out sprint, everyone else can sit on and benefit. If the Leadout is very fast, i.e. 37-40 mph in a Cat 3 race, it will have eliminated all but one or two rivals by the time the sprint actually starts.

That's the whole point of a leadout - reducing the odds. A talented and smart sprinter will still be able to beat your leadout but it'll be tough to lose to a more generic sprinter if you lead your sprinter out well. A 32-35 mph leadout is an invitation to the sprinters 10-15 back to come smash your sprinter into a tiny pulp as they pulverize him with their 11 tooth cogs. As a racer who mainly races on his own now, a 32 mph leadout is perfect for me. I don't have to fight to get particular wheels, I just wait 4 or 5 riders back and go from there. If the various teams upped the pace a bit, I'd be forced to ride a lot harder going into the sprint. This wouldn't bode well for my chances in the actual sprint.

 - The Leadout rider has to be a good sprinter to know where to go, what to do. It's no good leading your sprinter up the left side if the wind is hitting your left shoulder. It's also no good to go too early or to get boxed in. The Leadout has to understand how to protect and shelter the Sprinter without losing advantageous position, without losing bearings on the field. Finally the Leadout needs to know how to get through gaps that the Sprinter can but perhaps no one else can get through.

For various reasons I have never won a summer race - but I've gotten second more than a couple times. Virtually every single time I was beaten by a much stronger racer - but without a leadout, I'd probably be buried a bit deeper in the field. And in the Spring races - well, four and five man leadouts basically handed me win after win for a few years.

Leadouts, when they work well, are great. Working together like that creates bonds which are hard to break. One of my teammates sacrificed his chances for me on a regular basis, even when I was feeling iffy, even when the odds were stacked against us. And occasionally things worked out pretty well.

There was one Prospect race (a 1/2/3 race) where a sizeable break went up the road and disappeared. One strong teammate managed to make the break so the rest of us sat in and groveled under the Cat 2 hammer blows. With one 3 mile lap to go the break had come back a bit - to about 45-50 seconds if I remember correctly.

The chances of closing that were nil but the guys on the team instinctively gathered to do a big leadout. They started lining up at the front, I tucked in behind the designated Primary Leadout guy, and the boys started to ease on the pressure. We started up the hill when out of nowhere our break teammate appeared up the road at a virtual standstill. The break attacked itself on the hill and he got shelled.

He saw us in formation, dug deep, got in front, and rode his heart out to pull us over the climb. He pulled off, completely spent. My next teammate buried himself, went super hard, blew, and pulled off. I had two guys left and the second last one of them fried himself too before pulling off.

Only my Primary Leadout (PL) left. And way over a mile to go.

I sat on his wheel as he did his best impersonation of Sean Yates. Or, as the case may be, Gian Matteo Fagnini. We flew across the flats to the top of the descent, his deep carbon wheels humming. Just before the descent a very good sprinter (Cat 1, I think a former pro) and his leadout man pulled up next to me. The leadout guy looked at me questioningly. I let him in and his sprinter tucked in behind me.

Now we had two leadout men and I had a very antsy sprinter on my wheel. The fact that such a respected sprinter trusted my leadout says a lot about the leadout's speed.

We started flying down the hill. I couldn't believe PL spun his pedals so fast without blowing up. I don't know how fast we went down that hill but when we slowed down were were going 45 mph. He managed to hold the speed in the low 40's for a couple hundred meters on the flats afterwards. He was going so fast he was almost gapping the second leadout racer with such high speeds.

Then, incredibly, for the first time in perhaps 30 or 40 minutes, we could see the break. This was like the pros! PL buried himself for his final effort. His shoulders started bobbing and weaving and his wheels started to slalom a bit. I know what that's like - remember my attempt at a leadout?

He finally pulled over and to let us by. We instantly slowed. The other sprinter's leadout guy did his best to pull but he simply didn't have the strength or speed to maintain the pace. Nevertheless we caught the break at about 300 meters to go and everyone in the break started yelling and screaming in surprise. The sprinter behind me decided it was time and bounded away from us. I jumped super hard to latch onto his wheel.

I never quite got there and so there we were out of the saddle, sprinting one behind the other, with a few hundred yards to go. Too far for a true sprint but the leadout was so fast no one was coming up behind us. The disintegrating break helped filter the field too.

A few of the break had jumped hard for an early sprint. We came up on one of them, a pretty strong Cat 2, sprinting like mad on the left side of the road. There's a joggers lane on the left side that the racers can't enter, and he had left a gap to the left. Just over a foot of road to his left - a fatal error in this sprint. The Cat 1 sprinter had already gone right. I came up to this fading Cat 2's wheel and dove left.

He lifted his rear wheel and planted it about a foot to his left.

His wheel sounded like it was going to explode it landed so hard. I thought he lifted his wheel when he jumped (I've done this by accident) so I slammed on my brakes, waited for him to straighten things out, and went again.

He kicked his wheel over again.

That Dirty F***er. He'd intentionally left the door open, waiting with his wheel to slam it into whoever tried to go through it.

I jumped again and he kicked his wheel over again. Screw this. I decided I'd go over the line as I couldn't go right (I think someone was there by then). I dove left and just barely missed an official standing on the white line, keeping an eye out for just such a move. The stunned official, eyes wide open, couldn't get a word out as I sprinted by on the left, Dirty on the right. As soon as I passed Dirty he gave up.

Ultimately I blew before the line and just couldn't catch the guys in front of me. The really good sprinter whose leadout man tucked in front of me won the race. I guess that's what makes a good sprinter. I got 6th.

Our dinky Cat 3 team had pulled off a pretty impressive result. I've never done as well since, but then again, I'd never had such an incredible leadout again either.

I mentioned how working together in races builds bonds between racers. My leadout guy from that day will be my at my wedding.

But not with the title Primary Leadout.

That day he'll be Best Man.