Deer Trail Road Race, June 21, 2014

The Deer Trail Road Race was scheduled for April 27.  Unfortunately, as the date neared, the weather started taking a turn for the worse.  Finally, with really nasty weather on the horizon, they postponed the race indefinitely.  I assumed it was just going to be canceled and we'd never hear about it again.  That seems to be what happens.  Sometimes you check the race calendar, and something is just canceled without warning, and the promoters say to stay tuned for an update, and that's it.  Which is too bad, because there aren't a ton of road races out here, so every cancellation hurts.  With various races all over the state happening nearly every weekend, there isn't a whole lot of room to reschedule without overlapping someone else's race.

But then something fortuitous happened.  The Tour of Westcliffe on June 21 was supposed to be the Jr. and Sr. Road Race State Championships.  But then it was suddenly canceled.  Sounds like some sponsors backed out or something.  Canceling a random race is one thing, but you can't just cancel the state championships.  Luckily, the Deer Trail promoters were still trying to find an open weekend when they could have their race, and now a date just opened up.  The Junior Road Race Championship had already been rescheduled to a different race, so the Deer Trail Road Race was rescheduled to June 21 and became the Senior Road Race Championship.  Since I'm an old fart, this didn't really matter to me.  I'm in the Masters category now.  So this was just another road race for me.

The race was about 42 miles, in an L-shape along two roads.  At the north end and east end of the course, you actually do a 180-degree u-turn around a cone, and head back the other way.  Kind of crazy, so I was interested to see how it played out.  The course was somewhat narrow rolling country roads out in the farmland east of Denver.  Parking was at the local rodeo grounds, advertising that they hosted the World's First Rodeo.

We had a neutral start right in the town of Deer Trail, quickly heading under the highway and out onto the open roads.  For some reason, the race seemed to be moving pretty slowly for a while.  I was anywhere from the middle to the back of the pack as we leisurely made our way down the road.  The pace picked up a bit as we closed in on the first u-turn.  Stuck at the back of the pack, I could only watch as the leaders eased around the cone and took off again, while the rest of us came to a near dead-stop at the traffic jam.  Eventually, we were all around the cone, and catching back up to the leaders.

After about another 15 miles or so, we closed in on the next u-turn.  Not wanting to get left behind again, I sprinted up the inside, making my way to the front of the pack.  I was probably 3rd or 4th around the cone, and in a good position.  One rider started to make his way off the front of the pack, but nothing to worry about.  But then one of his teammates took off, joining him off the front.  It was only a 2-man breakaway, but with two members of the same team.  I don't know a ton about racing, but I know that a breakaway with two team members can be dangerous, so I decided to chase them down.  I didn't have any grand designs on winning this race, so I figured I could expend a little energy.  I got out of the saddle and pulled up behind the breakaway.  We ended up riding like that for a couple minutes, before the guys gave up and the pack came up around us.  I don't know that I actually did anything, but it felt like I did, so I was happy.

After killing myself to catch the break, I was running out of gas, and the main field slowly passed me until I was hanging on the back.  I relaxed a bit and ate a gel to try to make sure I had fuel for the end of the race.  We turned to head east again, and I was still hanging off the back, slowly getting dropped.  At that point, I joined one other racer to try to get back in the race.  After a bit of effort, we were back on the tail end of the pack.

At some point, we had to weave around a mysterious piece of junk in the road.  We didn't see what it was, but it was right in the middle of the pack.  A few minutes later, we found out what is was, when we saw a guy riding without his saddle.  Talking to him later, he said it was loose while he was sitting on it, so he stood up to mess with it a little bit, and it fell right off.  He ended up riding the last 10 miles or so without a saddle, standing for most of it and occasionally gingerly sitting on the top of his seatpost.  It didn't sound like a lot of fun, but he finished.  A pretty ingenious way to shave a few ounces off his bike, too.

Anyway, after expending that much energy catching back up to the group, I just barely had enough left to hang on the back.  As we made our way around the last cone of the race, I was on the back again, and was stuck in traffic.  The leaders took off, and the rest of us struggled to try to stay with them.  But they were long gone.  In the end, I finished about 90 seconds behind the winners, in 29th place out of 56 racers.  But my teammate Keith ended up sprinting for the win, so it was a good result nonetheless.  Chalk up another win for Psimet Zilla Racing.

And that looks like my last race for a while.  There are a couple races in July, but nothing I'm particularly interested in.  I may do a crit on July 13, but not sure yet.  There's a 3-day race in Salida, but I'm not planning to do that.  And I'm going to be on vacation for the Mt. Evans Hill Climb, so I'll have to skip that, too.  There are a couple races in August, but not many.  But the season is really winding down.

Keith Collins on the top of the podium.  Sorry for the blurry picture.  Not sure why they did the podiums in a dark barn instead of outside in the sun.