Cali

Pic: You don't see this every day in Colombia: a dog kicking its dogs up!

RACE WRITEUP: Girardini XI Clasica Ciclistica Senior Master

i should make a declaration here to say a little about "the race writeup". its an important part of the race, almost as important as the race itself because its a venting of the intellectual aspect of the race which has no outlet until afterwards. whats interesting about "the race writeup" is that at the end of the race each person could and will have a very different perspective and its irregardless of how well the "auther" did in the race: everyone has their own story. the race report begins the minute the race is over and as time goes on it evolves because you constantly remember more about the race, what happened, how you reacted, how you felt, etc. its a vital aspect of post race rituals and so as a friend, family member, spouse or girl/boyfriend of a racer i hope you will be understanding about how annoying this can be. with that said...

When I woke up at 7am dehydrated (only 3 Bravas the previous evening but up until 1am) and upon hearing the sound of pouring rain off the roof onto the street below I second guessed my having returned for this race. A big effort just to return for a race, but I had come to Colombia in part to witness and experience the cycling phenomenon here and this was going to be a part of that. I've ridden along with pros during my travels and chatted them up, but I hadn't seen the racing scene yet.

About a third of the way into the race I second guessed my having returned to Cali just for a bike race, and I don't think it was the last time either. I was getting anxious to real in a breakaway that had been dangling out there for a long time and had rather hoped to join them up ahead, so I attacked and was joined by my new friend Jorge, who had driven me to the race, and 1 other. We swapped pulls but it was soon clear that I couldn't hack it, and struggling and flailing and unable to take my turn, I finally gave up and dropped back to the pack, depressed that I'd come back to Cali for this race. Trying to recover midpack, I looked behind and realized that I was at the back, dead last. I hate that feeling: its like you-re going to drop off the edge of the earth if you slip any further behind.

Let me set the scene of the race a bit, this is crucial and probably the most interesting aspect of the race: there were only about 40 riders in the Masters A field, all riders 30 to 39, but I quickly noted a couple numbers of guys who looked strong less than 10km into the race and my instincts turned out to be correct: #9, 11, and 1 were strong favorites and the first two, I found out after the race were ex-pros from the Selle Italia Colombia squad just 2 years ago. The first leg of the race was about 40km out on the highway to Popayan, and we literally raced along with traffic on a well beaten two lane highway. The road wasn't "closed" and the peleton used the entire two lanes despite the guy on the bullhorn in the officials car behínd who kept screaming "a la derecha" and even "por favor", but to know avail, the peleton had no ears but had its own mind. But traffic cooperated which reinforced my belief that the bicycle is king here in Colombia... the people respect cyclists and admire the racers, so EVEN buses slowed for us. This was amazing. On breaks the small packs or soloists would pull in behind trucks and buses to get whatever draft they could: there seemed to be no rules. There were four fields, Masters A-D based purely upon age, and before the race a guy asked me which category I was in he replied "ah, muy joven" (young). There were 5 or 6 military escorts on motorcycles and they were equipped with sirens and machine guns, but they didn't seen to know the race route too well, as you'll soon find out. Okay, so...

I happened to make it back to the front of the peleton before we pulled off the highway onto a small road and it was a super sketchy maneauver because a car was pulling onto the highway as we were pulling in... it was unbelievable, really, that this car would be in the way of our race: Locombia, I love this place.... and part of the pack went one way and the rest the other way around this car at full speed.. I'm sure the driver was shocked, but then again, maybe not.

A few kilometers later the break was still up the road but I was at the very front of the main field when two guys attacked and I jumped in behind them, but my first thought was "I didn't know these two were still in the pack", #s 11 and 9, and then it dawned on me that they had made a wrong turn and had chased back. Hell, I was going with them regardless. 4 of us built up a lead and then we hit the only climb of the day, and I had no idea how long it was but when the others slowed I pulled ahead and accelerated and I heard one of the guys say "un escalador", he-s a climber. i lead all the way up the 1-km climb but didn-t know about the KOM prime, and so they jumped me for it. anyway, we were caught by the pack not far after the climb but a cool thing happened i might never forget: i was racing hard at the front with another small group as we pulled into a very small village and all hell broke loose. the lead motorcycle, a machine gun toting military guy had its lights flashing and the follow vehicle was right behind us with a siren going, and the people in the village seemed completely unaware of what was going on until we were there... there were cars, motorcycles, livestock and people in the roads, and this chaos made it so exciting... as though we in the Tour busting through the throngs of people, and the craziness kept you on your toes because there was always something to dodge. When we finally made it out of town I was amazed to see the pack still chasing and there had not been a crash.

moving on... with about 15 to 20 kms to go, although i did't know how far at the time, the pack was together again after a few failed efforts by others and so i gave it another go. this time i decided to just "roll" off the front because a full-on attack tends to result in aggression from others when you can often lull them into not responding by just easing off. #9 came with me and after i ramped it up to full speed for a long pull i gave him the sign to take a turn, but nothing. he was a part of the biggest team, called ironically "el gordo" because they were nothing of the like, and this team controlled every part of the race to this point and there was little anyone could do about it but react. #11 was one of his teammates. i couldn-t afford to stall for too long so i took another long pull and then expected him to take a turn but still nothing. "venga, venga" i yelled. then i tried reasoning, "trabaja conmigo, por favor", y "un piquito hombre", but nothing phased him and so once i'd got us a sizable gap i tried to attack him, but forget it, this guy was too fast. but i did beat him at the next and final "meta" or sprint line and i was stoked about this, but then he countered and because i was cooked he quickly built up a 500m gap. the pack was less than 1km behind now and chasing hard. that was it, i thought, but instead of giving up i put my head down and rode hard just to hang on as long as possible. i jumped in behind trucks and buses, #9 was doing this too as well as the pack behind, and within a few minutes i was gaining. eventually i caught him and predictably he got behind me and sat on my wheel, and so it was up to me to keep pulling while he got to rest. i realized then that it was either give it my all and get 2nd, or play games with this guy and have to sprint it out with the chase group, and i decided that i was on vacation and didn't care for glory so much as a good training session and decent result, so i resigned myself to going for it. i'd been getting stronger and stronger all race and this kind of effort was my strength because of a month of riding every day with a 40 kilo payload.

the pace car pulled up and i asked how much further and they said 5km. about 7km later i asked how far and they said 3km. more than 3km later they said 1km. i-d built a huge gap over the others and so here is when i wish i-d begun playing with #9 instead of letting him take the V uncontested. with about 500m to the line he attacked and i rolled in for second. i was amazed at the reaction because i became a celebrity of sorts. they interviewed me twice for TV and many came up to congradulate me. it was such a good feeling there and everyone was so good spirited unlike so much of the race scene in the NW where there are too many egos.

i was shwagged a cycling cap and a trophy that I donated to my friend Herman and his bike shop, BTT Norte de Cali, who loaned me the bike.

Pic: Pretty stoked about 2nd place, but its always a bit hard being first loser.

Pic: They are big on trophies here: I'd have preferred a few thousand pesos or a couple of arepas con queso.

The postrace surprise was that Jorge took me to his "cloob" which turned about to be the swankiest country club I've ever been too. We took a lengthy Turkish bath and then ate amazing crepes poolside in terrycloth robes... no kidding.