Race Report: Amgen Tour of California Amatuer Time Trial
By Matt Bigos
WOW! That is all I can say about the Time Trial at Solvang during the Tour of California. On May 20, I was able to race the TT thanks to AEG. They do an amateur race in the morning before the pro's take off and this year they were nice enough to let me take part in it.
This is something that I dreamt of last year. I wanted to put something together for myself and some of the other para riders to be able to race there. This turned out to be a much bigger undertaking then I thought in the beginning and in the end, I was only able to get one spot for myself. But, I have to start some where right? Hopefully next year I can pull it off to make it bigger and better. Maybe ride the entire TOC? Hmmmm, maybe.... Anyhow, a HUGE thank you to Bob Kaplin, Ryan Ung, Neil Shirley, Ben Delaney, Alex Jarman, Brent/Ride Cyclery, Sonja, The Breck Family and everyone else that helped me in this one!
I headed up on Thursday to stay at The Breck's house, nice and close to the start. Solvang isn't that far? Right? Well, turns out mileage yes, it's not that far. As we all know though, traveling through LA can have its issues. A 200 mile drive turned into a 7 hour adventure to get there. But, with basically no issues, other then more sitting time than I wanted, I made it there. I took off for a drive of the course with Benny in the bug to do a little scouting work. Then back to the house for a real home cooked meal! Jiffy Corn Bread muffins!!!!!!! Life really doesn't get much better then that. I was in heaven! What a better way to rest up the night before a race then with some real comfort food?
It's official! Amgen Tour of CA race number.
Morning of the race things went rather smooth, well as smooth as I figured they would for something that big. After wandering around for 20 minutes or so I finally found the area that AEG had set up for all the riders taking part in the amateur TT. I parked the car and lugged my stuff over to set up. I found a nice little spot hiding behind the local bike shop in town there to warm up. With everything set up, checked in, and ready to go. I had a few hours till start time. So, off I went on my road bike to ride a lap of the course. I took off in a nice easy pace and ran into the Road Bike Action Group with Neil Shirley in it. Chatted for a bit about the race and how things were going with him, then finished off riding the course. There were already an amazing amount of people setting up camp along the course to watch the race. *A side note, riding Ballard canyon on your road bike with a climbing gearing on it doesn't really give you an idea to how it will feel during the TT.
I had little time between getting back from my scouting lap and race time. I changed into my skinsuit and got all my dorky aero gear laid out to be ready to race and hopped on the trainer to finish up my warm up. Things went fine during warm up and my legs felt pretty good. I hopped off the trainer a little early to make my way through the crowd to the start house. Now one of the coolest parts of the TT is that they use the same start house for us as the Pro's. Complete with THE Dave Towle doing the announcing! On my way to the start line I ran into an old friend, Todd from SRAM. It's nice to see an old face (one of my favorite things about racing) and sometimes you get a little extra motivation from them. So thanks Todd for a few good words before I took off. Into the starting area I went. Oddly, I wasn't even the least bit nervous, and actually was joking with some of the other guys about who was going to catch who. Turns out I did most of the catching that day.
Matt tackles the climb on the Amgen Tour of CA time trial course.
Now, I am terrible at guessing about how many people are watching a race. But, if I had to guess how many were at the start line screaming when I took off, I'd say about 15,000. Doubtful, but that's what I am going to tell myself. It was probably one of the most amazing moments of my cycling career rolling down the start ramp and hearing all of those people screaming for me and pounding on the fence! The course itself was a ton of fun, hard, but fun. Probably the hardest TT course I've raced yet. Things start out pretty hard there. About 100 feet in a straight flat line, then a 90 left turn and straight up a wall. The climb out of the box was actually kind of nice. Enough to get the heart rate up and legs flowing, but as long as you paced it right, not enough to kill you. Now, at the top of the hill, I heard a fire truck, but didn't really think anything of it. I just crested the hill, followed my motorcycle down the hill and right when I was up to speed around 40-45 mph that fire truck came ripping past me. I was in the middle of the road in a neighborhood where the speed limit was 25 and the truck passed me and scared the ever loving shit out of me! I think I actually peed a little in my skinsuit. It turns out at the 90 degree right hand turn at the bottom of the hill, the barriers reached up and bit one of the guys that took off in front of me. Hope he's okay.
The rest of the race was rather straight forward, a large amount of suffering, pain, crying and general misery was the call of the day. I guess that means I was doing it right? Ballard Canyon was probably the best part of the course. You climb about 700 meters maybe? Not really sure. But for a TT course it is pretty steep. At the bottom I saw 3 or 4 riders that I was coming up on pretty quickly. Someone at the bottom knew my name and was screaming they were ahead of me and to crush the hill! Going up the climb was a mess! There were 4 riders in front of me, so a motorcycle escort for each of them, plus mine and 2 media cars. I felt like I was really doing a pro race weaving in an out of the cars, riders, moto's and screaming fans! At the top I saw Benny and a few others screaming and jumping up and down! It really was cool having friends out there screaming my name for me! Dropping down the climb was a super fast fun descent. The run into the finish over the last 10K or so is pretty fast with a couple S turns that I hit almost too fast and passed my motor. I had to scream at him a few times to move out of my way. I think he thought I had a few screws lose. He's probably right!
Matt powers the Amgen Tour of CA time trial course.
The last 1K of the race is a blur! I had a rider about 10 seconds in front of me as I crested the last little rise into town and saw the 1K to go. I was way past TT pace at that point. I had the town screaming, people all over the place and wanted to catch the last rider coming into the finish line. Rolling into town I took the last 90 left turn way too fast and thought for sure I was gonna yard sale it into the fence and land on the spectators, but somehow I hit the corner fast enough and stayed up right, full sprint onto the line. After crossing the line I had to grab a fence to avoid falling over. I was so cooked I couldn't even manage to get my feet out of the clips. I had a handful of people yell my name and talk to me, but to be honest, I was so cracked I didn't really know where I was for probably 20 minutes.
In the end, my time was actually good enough for 22 out of the 60 amateurs that raced. I was actually surprised I had beat that many people. I was no where near close to even the last place guy in the pro race. But by now I know my place in the cycling world.
I really can't say enough about how amazing this was for me! And a huge thank you again to AEG for letting me take part in this. And everyone else that helped me pull this together. Not just for this event, but just for helping me pull my 2011 season together!
I am getting slightly better at updating my blog. Hopefully I'll keep getting better! I am off to Spain for the second Para Road World Cup. Maybe I'll be motivated enough to put my blog together on the plane back home!
