Hollenbeck's Road Race Report

Just about a month ago, after riding with the Tuesday night competitive group in Ithaca, I decided to go for broke and try out bike racing for real. The intervening time has been filled with a certain amount of anxiety, along with a stepped-up training regimen. The last two weeks have been particularly intense, as I struggled to squeeze as many rides into a tightly-packed family schedule. Many thanks to my lovely family and dear friends who put up with me as the race day got closer.

Before I bore you, dear reader, with the details, I must say that my first bike racing experience was awesome and inspiring. Having never competed in anything athletic before, I was so nervous and unsure of how it would turn out. While I'm a fiercely competitive person when riding against my own stats, I have been trying to convince myself for many years now that I had no interest in competing against others. To be fair, that feeling hasn't changed much, but now that I know that I can do pretty well, especially as a novice, I'm totally hooked.

I competed in the Masters category on the recommendation of one of the race organizers, and I'm very glad that I did, rather than with in the Cat 4/5 group. The Masters are quite an experienced bunch, and I felt relatively at ease in their midst, with the exception of the first 5 miles, when we were all packed together like sardines. One wrong move and it would have been ugly, and there was a moment when a car stopped just ahead to help a rider in trouble, and the pack had to make a quick maneuver to avoid the vehicle. There were times when I wanted to make a move to chase down other riders, but was stuck in the middle with no chance to advance.

Fortunately the climb up Parker St. spread the riders out substantially, and I was very pleased to discover that many thousands of vertical feet and over 800 miles of training this year really paid off. I was able to stay with the lead bunch of roughly 14 riders from that point forward. It's lucky that the big climb came early when I was still fairly fresh, and after that, it was pretty much just about constantly pushing forward and not letting up. There wasn't a lot of pacelining on the back stretch, but I was able to comfortably keep with the lead group, and we eventually passed a number of Cat 4/5 riders who started five minutes earlier than us. It was at this point that I realized that I would be able to finish strong and feel pretty good about the results.



At the 17 mile point, after a long, very manageable 3-4% grade, there's a 1/4 mile stretch with a 15% grade. That's a killer climb, even though it's short, especially on such a hot and humid day. That climb really had me suffering, but I was buoyed by seeing my friends Natasha and Keith at the top of the hill, cheering me on. Keith had his camera with him, and took the great photos of my suffering! I'm so appreciative that he did this.

After the killer climb, I started to lose a little steam, and the lead Masters pack started to drift out of my grasp. A kind rider passed me and encouraged me to catch the group, and even though I made some headway, it just wasn't meant to be. The race ended on a last brutal climb, and though I was a bit wobbly toward the line, seeing my wife and boys gave me that extra encouragement to finish strong.

I finished in 14th place out of 45 in the Masters category, and my time would have placed me 13th in Cat 4/5 out of 65 riders, which really has me feeling good and motivated for future racing opportunities. I was only 1.5 minutes off of the winning Masters and Cat 4/5 pace, so I have no complaints about my showing.

Next step: Join the "Cookies," the Finger Lakes Cycling Club's team and get my racing license from USA Cycling. The adventure continues!


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