Copperas Cove Race Report by Greg LaKomski

The first race of the season is always challenging and yesterdays Copperas Cove Road Race was no exception.  With temperatures hovering around 40 degrees and a moderate north wind, every piece of riding gear you had bought with was barely adequate. Thank god for the sun. Teams from every corner of Texas and several other states were there.  I assume that for someone from Kansas it felt balmy. VC put in a strong presence with Greg Hall, Rick Hall, Seymour, Lynn Cornet, Scott Yates, Mike Haney, Doug Ballew and Donna LaKomski.  Aaron Foreman – a Cat 2 who is the owner of Orthopedic and Prosthetic Technologies and my sponsor was also in attendance.

The combined 35 plus Men's / Women’s open field was 100 strong and 100 nervous and hyped up. As we rolled out and I started to check out who was there, I began to get that bad feeling that a whole lot of Cat 1-2 s decided to sign up for the 35+ instead of going extra long. Given the wide variety of skills in the pack and the constant bumping and slashing the ride was somewhat terrifying in the early going.  It was a confusion of overlapping wheels, thrashing up hills only to slow suddenly after the crest, and snot flying everywhere due to the wind and cold temperature. It was so dicey that it was hard to even get a drink.  Given the number of 1 / 2 s in the field I had expected better but squirreldom knows no bounds.  At the same time I will freely admit that I was a squirrel just like everyone else.  Hypocrisy is a terrible thing.

At least two riders noodled off the front within he first ten miles and the pack let them go.   They would stay off for 40 miles and have as much as a kilometer lead.  Greg Hall tried the same move and was swarmed.  He waited a while and tried again, was swarmed again.  I tried to jump off with another guy thinking maybe they would let a poor one legged guy go but this also caused a violent reaction.  I guess they confused me with the other Greg  At that point I decided that  sitting in and waiting for the big guys to deal with the break was the only thing to do.  Oh well.  Greg Hall is too well known and too good to be let go.  I think that I just confused them. 

I tried to just stay in the front third of the field and remind myself that I actually enjoyed road racing. As the pack sorted itself out it I was able to relax a little bit and enjoy the racing.  It truly was just wait and be patient.  Even got to do just a bit of occasional sightseeing.

As we approached the 30 mile point I was pondering why there had not been a reaction yet to the break which we could no longer see in front of us.  I studied the old mental race map and realized that we were about to turn right on a straight rode with the potential for a serious crosswind.  I said a quick Oh Shit! and made a move through the pack for the right shoulder. Around me a lot of very hard core riders suddenly  began moving forward through very small gaps doing the same thing I was doing trying to get to the front.  It seemed that it wasn’t more thana couple of minutes later that we hit the corner.  All hell broke loose as we surged onto a narrow, sandy, potholed road.  All I could do was get on the pedals, hammer, and keep shifting.  Grab wheel, jump hole, change wheel, miss wheel, hammer, hammer, hammer was all you could do. I glanced down and saw 30 something and decided it was better not to know.  I was having a blast.

As we came screaming out of the first tree lined section of road and into the cross wind, I was finally able to see the little dot in the distance that was our target.  Everyone still with us, maybe 30 riders (I don’t know how to look back at that speed) were all players.  Suffering in front seemed preferable to suffering in the back so that’s where I stayed.  The pace backed off a bit and one team tried to put someone up the road for some unknown, obviously flawed reason but no one was going to put up with this. We just went around him and put it overdrive again.  I seem to remember one of my team mates trying to go up the road and my blocking for a bit with a San Jose rider. That didn’t work either.  Double overdrive now.  After some wild antics, three of us set up across the narrow road with the rest of the lead group stretched out behind us and pounded. I could only hope that Greg Hall was back there cause it was not clear that with this level of effort that Stumpy was going to be a strong finisher.  The wind was not as bad as it could of been and we clearly wanted the break before we turned onto the down wind stretch back to town.  I was hooked up for the duration. All I could do was keep going and pray that all the stuff I was hitting wouldn’t cause a problem. 

We caught those poor guys just as we hit the feed zone at 40 miles. It became very clear at that moment that their luck, my luck, and my rear tire pressure had simultaneously run out.  As I came to a stop and stripped off my rear wheel I realized two things.   First, we were down to 20 guys and the next chase group was at least 30 sec back, which was a good thing.  The second thing was that the follow car was nowhere in sight, which was a very bad thing.  After several minutes of waiting and spastically trying to get my brain switched to tube changing mode,  some folks in the feedzone pulled a pump out of their car and crossing the road to help.  We had a great time chatting and changing the tube.  Heck we had all the time in the world.  It took 15 minutes before the official car pulled up.  Thankfully, I didn’t have to say anything and he was harassed by the feeders for not being there for me.  He had some lame excuse about stopping for a crash with severely bleeding riders and coordinating the ambulance.  Ok, I’ll cut him a break. :)

My day was essentially over but the truth is that I wouldn’t have been long for that Cat 1-2 world anyway. Lets say that I rode the final 13 miles at a comfortable pace with what was left of my quads. 

Donna and I drug our tired bodies to IHOP to gorge ourselves on the largest platter they had.  We had done the best we could do.

I had a great race and a great time despite the cold.  Next week is a power training week and the Tour of New Braunfels is in two weeks so it is time to stop whinin and start poundin.

Greg LaKomski