A Racing is "PRO" Racing

Everybody enjoys racing the DePauw University Heritage Lake Road Race. It gets cold in the afternoon, there are some windy bits, and the field carries a lot of momentum so we can keep our chain on the big dog for the whole race. As like the big dog. At the pre-race call-up, Boris the chief referee told us that the B men had bored them, and that we had to make up for the fact that they lollygagged around the course at 20 mph. We took it to heart and gave them all of the elements that I love to watch in a European pro race: fierce, early attacks, a strong and long breakaway, a furious, organized chase, and a controversial finish.

Our race was hardest during the first 2.5 laps. It fit the general trend, which is to say that teams keep launching their riders off the front until some sort of group of 10-12 riders forms. This group stays away long enough for everyone else to get tired in the chase. Once the peloton comes back together, a smaller collection of riders goes free and the field regroups and figures out what to do. Sometimes the smaller group gets caught; sometimes it succeeds.

I stayed as close to the front in the first 2 laps as I could, and never strayed out of the first 15 riders. The attacks came like cluster bombs for the first bit, and you had to make good choices in the windy sections. I marked the moves that I thought were dangerous, and let other people pull me across the gaps. Without any team mates, my only real concern was to not get caught out on any major splits. True to form, the group of 10 went away and looked strong. It was the first panic moment of the race and thought that I might as well try and get across. But once the race official pulled up next to me and told my crossing mate that he was disqualified, I sat up and reintegrated into a rapidly chasing field (what was I thinking anyway?). We caught the group, but then TSK disappeared up the road with 2 others before anyone knew it.

Indiana put all nine men on the front and the rest of us just sat back as they drove it to the finish. The sad end came when pack dynamics and poor choices led to several bad accidents and yellow line violations in the last 2 kilometers. Those of us who were caught out had to do a little dirt riding to get back on course. Luckily for me, I was able to join forces with Kip Spaude and we killed it to catch back on to the front 20 riders. We caught their tail just as we hit the wind and the field sprint. With all my pop spent on getting back to the field, I decided to just diesel it past the stragglers for nineteenth. Kip kept it going. The turn of luck was severely disappointing. My legs had done everything that I asked them to and they still felt lively, and I was right where I wanted to be for the finish.

What is even more "PRO" is that the officials decided to cancel the results for the entire field because of blatant violations of the center line rule. The list (at the time that Boris stopped counting) stood as follows:

DePauw (three times)
Marion (three times)
Northwestern (two times)
Indiana (seven times)
A rider with a purple jersey and a drawing looking like a white star at the back (once)
UWW (three times)
two riders with different light blue jerseys (once each)

That is a lot of rule breaking. Note who is missing: Me, Madison, Milwaukee, Illinois, Ohio State, and Purdue (who won).

I heard and saw our new racers yelling at me each time we came through the start/finish. They could not pick me out and were just yelling at our collective mass when we went by, but I noticed and want to say thanks.