Nature Valley Grand Prix

I headed to Minnesota last week for the Nature Valley Grand Prix, one of the bigger NRC stage races of the year. All the major pros showed up, and their form from Philly Week hadn't worn off. With the intense, short stages, I decided to use the race as a buildup for the Tour of PA, one of my biggest goals for the year (it starts on the 24th).

Here's a quick recap of the stages:
1: Downtown St. Paul Crit: this course would have been tight and sketchy in good weather conditions, but the pouring rain, shitty pavement, slippery road paint and manhole covers, and crashing race motorcycles made it damn near impossible. Thankfully, one of the cable stops on my bike broke in the first lap, rendering my rear brake worthless, thereby earning me a free lap and a trip to the pit. I jumped on a Shimano neutral bike and they threw me in the middle of the pack, about 30 spots better than I'd started.

Two bits of bad news about the neutral bike:
1. It had shimano shifters, which I didn't even know how to use anymore after 6 months on SRAM.
2. The tires were pumped up to 130 PSI, which made each wet corner feel like I was trying to turn on ball bearings.
With those factors (mostly #2), I was completely unable to move up in the group. I had to open gaps in the turns and close them in the straightaways. Luckily, the pace was slow as hell just trying to avoid the pileups around EVERY TURN. It felt more like a Mario game than a bike race: just moving at one speed and trying to avoid doom.
They finally canceled the race when the motorcycle official crashed, laying his machine down sideways in a blind turn.

Stage 2: Cannon Falls Road Race
This race traditionally splits up the field a good bit, so I was attentive for splits and stayed near the front most of the day. There were a few moments that got hard, and I was almost always in the attack that followed, but nothing got much of a leash, and the wind wasn't blowing hard enough to shatter the group.
Prerace wheel drama had forced me to go without a speed sensor, which meant I didn't know how far we were into the race. That's where the attentiveness thing comes in, because before I knew it, we were flying along the dirt road that headed to the finishing circuits, and I was at the back of the field when position mattered most. I spent the next half hour jumping across gaps from dropped riders, hipslinging them out of the way, and trying to limit the damage. At the end, I'd lost 35 seconds to the front group. It was a lot, but it could have been worse.

Stage 3: 6 mile TT
This was a pretty short TT, but it suited me fairly well, with a flat out-and-back section, and a steep climb at the end. I set the goal of a top 20. My legs were flat at first, but felt good near the end, but it wasn't quite enough. I ended up 23rd: 5 seconds out of the top 20, and 15 seconds from a top 10. Slightly disappointing, but I was but I know I'll have that extra 15 seconds in a year, and I'm pretty sure in 3-4 years I'll have the 50 seconds I would have needed to win the motherfucker. Also, I beat all the American U23 riders, which bodes well for nationals in August.

Stage 4: Dumb crit in downtown Minneapolis
It was a tight course, with very few good spots to move up. I fought my way to the front early just by jumping up the side every chance I got, but there was really no point going for a result with the few pro teams lining it up and clogging all the turns, so I hung out, gave up some spots, and waited for the race to be over. It got a little intense in the last couple laps trying to stay ahead of the time gaps, but I pulled it off and saved my legs quite well, as my powermeter confirmed, telling me I coasted 37% of the race.

Stage 5: Mankato Road Race
90-something miles in nasty crosswinds is never fun, and the hostilities started from the gun on this stage. The big teams drove it hard for the first hour and a half, showing their guns and setting the stage for breakaways. Of course, I got a flat tire about 2 miles into the race. Once again, the neutral support car was behind the entire race caravan, and sped off instead of pacing me back up, so I was left in the wind to chase back onto a bunch of pros trying to kill each other. If I was smart, I would have taken the spare wheel, flipped a U-turn, and gone back to the car. Instead, I decided to chase. I spent the first 20 minutes in the wind by myself, and kept the field close. Of course, I was steadily losing both time and energy, so I gestured a police car in front of me. By means of more gestures, I taught him how to motorpace. He should really work with deaf people, because the man did awesome.

Generally, the cars behind a race ride close together, allowing riders to draft and easily jump from car to car as they make their way back up to the field with food, bottles, empty bladders, etc. However, non-race cars, such as ambulances, police, etc. don't know how this works, and every time I worked my way back up to the tail end of the caravan, I would find gaps the size of the grand canyon, and the ambulance driver kept braking, so I couldn't get a draft from it at all. After the first failed attempt to enter the caravan, I knew I would have to just sprint around the cop car and the 300 m of idiot drivers to get into the race caravan. I executed well, but the gap was too big to jump across.

The next plan was pretty illegal, but I'd been out there for an hour, and was more worried about being stranded in the middle of Minnesota than actually finishing the race, which would be a longshot at best after this kind of effort. In my final attempt to reintegrate with the race, I knocked on the cop car, got him to open the window, braced my elbow in the corner of the window, and told him to gun it. I soon found myself hanging on at about 60 mph. We got to the back of the caravan and I swung out, narrowly avoided his protruding mirror and light dealie, and slingshotted into the cars. The timing was perfect, as the race had slowed up a little, and I MADE IT BACK TO THE PELETON. AFTER OVER AN HOUR OF TRYING (I normally hate the caps thing, but I feel it's necessary here, because that was a fucking accomplishment, even though no one noticed. Also, it's all I have, as you'll soon find out).

Of course, my legs were completely destroyed. Some attacks came and went, the racing got more intense, and I was spit out the back with 20 other guys as the race split into 2 big groups and a bunch of small ones chasing t hem. At least I made it to the feed zone, where a car would take me back to the start finish. Shitty business, but I have a story to tell, and I at least kind of got a result in the TT, so the stage race wasn't all for naught. Three teammates made it as well, and I'm excited to see if they pull something off at the Stillwater crit today.

Tomorrow I fly back to Hartford, and the U25 Tour of PA starts 8 days later. I'm feeling a little under the weather, so there's a good chance that this week will be devoted to vitamins, orange juice, and sleeping. In fact, I'm going to start right now.