Grant's Tomb Criterium, Collegiate Men's A - Peter Chiu - 3-15-09
I, like most people, have made some poor decisions that have resulted in lost sleep. For example, in college I was hitting some of the bars around New Haven with a friend and somehow ended up in the basement of a bar drinking beer and probably several forms of hard liquor. Luckily, I fell asleep in a corner before I was talked into walking to a sketchy strip club with a PhD candidate and a few locals. I felt bad for abandoning my buddy, but I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. Similarly, I barely slept last night, because I made 2 tactical errors in the space of 2 or 3 minutes that cost me a decent result.
Early in the race, a teammate of mine, Alex Bremer (Empire/Columbia) launched a breakaway and dragged with him Christopher Worden (CCB/UVM), Thom Coupe (Bikereg.com-Cannondale/UNH), and Patrick Bradley (Rutgers). With a break up the road, we stomped on all the moves that we felt were legitimate attempts to get across the gap, which quickly went to 30 seconds. Josh Lipka (Bikereg.com-Cannondale/UNH) and Eric Schildge (Bikereg.com-Cannondale/Dartmouth) made notable attempts to jump across, but the break was working fantastically together. There was no catching them.
With 5 laps to go, the field had given up on the chase but was reorganizing for the sprint. This is always a very dangerous time. For whatever reason, everyone thinks the exact same thought: “with 5-to-go, I’m going to make my move to the front.” In every corner, people are diving in to crack the inside line. On every straightaway, guys are coming up on the outside. A good sprinter is able to ride the waves and feel the pulse of the race. In doing so, he/she can move to the right places and take advantage of the efforts of other riders. I don’t have mad skillz like that. On top of that, the peloton was snaking across the road as nobody wanted to work, but everyone was trying to move to the front. One rider’s move and the riders following his wheel almost put me and probably 6 other guys into a row of parked cars, so I had to put on the brakes to avoid becoming a hood ornament on some guy’s Civic (unfortunately, there were too many cars parked in “no parking saturday” slots to tow all of them… only the really dangerous ones). After some bumping to avoid death, I had dropped back from about 15th to 30th wheel, I did 2 things:
1)freaked out about repositioning myself
2)made sure I maintained continence
Mistake number 1. No, I’m not talking about maintaining continence. That would be ridiculous, and it is NEVER a mistake. Mistake 1 was allowing myself to be 15th wheel with 5-to-go. I really should’ve been closer to 10th or a little farther up. The choppy pace meant that it would not have been insanely difficult to move up. That was quickly followed by mistake number 2, and this is the big one. I saw Nick Bennette (MetLife/Princeton) hanging out where I was, and I just latched onto his wheel. I figured, “Nick’ll probably make it to the front… this way I’m already on his wheel to outsprint him. Word.” Bad idea. Not only is it not certain that he’s going to make it to the front, but he’ll be trying to conserve energy moving through gaps that will only fit one rider before closing. It didn’t occur to me that this would be the case even after I had to elbow a couple guys out of the way to stay on his wheel.
By this time, Alex Bremer, my teammate in the breakaway, had decided it was time to throw down the mad hurt and show the break a clean pair of heels. Riding away from riders of that quality is no small feat, and he did it with 4-to-go. Spectators told me that the gap to those chasers went to 20 seconds in a jiff.
Meanwhile, I was performing my comedy of errors glued to Bennette’s wheel trying to plan out the field sprint for 5th place. Going into the last 600m, I was still about 20th wheel thinking that Bennette was going to charge around everyone. Really, the only excuse I can dream up is that the blood had been sucked out of my brain and into my legs. When I finally got around to sprinting, I had to sprint through a minefield of non-sprinters moving backwards to get myself up to 10th in the field sprint and 14th in the final results. Lessons learned. Truly, this was a poor choice of a strategy. I think back and think what might’ve happened if I had just made a strong move to the front on my own with 4 to go and then rested for the last few laps. As I lay in bed last night replaying the race and visualizing the gaps, I tossed and turned unable to believe that I had been so foolish. Don’t lose sleep over a bike race by repeating my mistakes.