Iowa City Road Race

Road racing has never been that attractive to me. First, I know of far too many people who have crashed with broken bones and loss of skin to show for it. And, second, I know that successful road racing relies on strategy and teamwork – I don’t know the first thing about road racing strategy! The teamwork problem is a little more easily solved even though I am the only woman racing on the road in a Zoom Performance kit. The generous ladies of Punk Rock Cycling volunteered to adopt me into their team if or when I wanted to lay it out on the road.

With no mountain bike races on the calendar this weekend, Cam and I wanted to get to the Quad Cities to celebrate Cam’s niece’s third birthday. We figured we could hit the Iowa City Road Race on Saturday and the Old Capital Crit on the way home on Sunday.

We got to Kalona (an Mennonite community just outside Iowa City) early enough to get me registered and ready to face my first road race. Cam piled on the advice to help keep me out of any trouble. My job was to stay in front or far enough off the back that if something happened in the pack, I could avoid the carnage.

Cam took the Power Tap wheel off my bike, and I got to ride it for the first time with my Ksyrium wheels – much lighter! It took a little getting used to, and I could hardly believe what a difference they made! After a little pre-race meeting with the four Punk Rock ladies we all lined up for the start. I think there were about 30-35 women there for the Cat 4 race. I chose to line up on the outside and in the back, just to keep myself out of trouble.

We headed out, and the first thing I noticed was how slow we were going! It was a very relaxed pace for the first of our two 12-mile laps. There were a few surges, but when I glanced down at my heart rate, I was in Zone 1 much of the time! While many of the girls were working to improve their position, I rode around in the back, making sure my position was one of personal safety. To heck with trying to race!

In a Cat 4 race, nearly everyone is a beginner (me included), and this was very apparent. I saw a lot of near-misses that could have been avoided by using a little bit of common sense. There were also some close calls due to the lack of pack-riding experience of our field. The yellow line rule was a topic of discussion with the race officials before the race began, though once we got out on the course, there was no yellow line. The spirit of the rule was followed on lap one, but with everyone getting anxious for the finish, lap two had riders all over the road. We had no motorcycle official during the first lap, but one found us on lap two, about 2-3 miles from the finish.

This official tried to talk the field back over the (imaginary) yellow line, and then made a bad choice and just squeezed us to the right. This action caused a number of reactions from the field of beginners – a lot brake-grabbing and evasive actions. This rippled though the field causing some tires to touch and, at the back of the field, a rider to hit the pavement. I caught the sight of this out of the corner of my eye. I recognized the pink and black kit, so I knew it was a friend from the VeloRosa Team, but I wasn’t sure who. A couple riders stopped to help her. We were very close to the finish so the group exploded and the final sprint was on. I wasn’t close enough to the front when it was go-time, but I still finished in the main group, about 12th. Some one caught my final sprint on camera:

Kim Hopkins ended up with a collarbone broken in four places. The official eventually took responsibility for the accident and apologized to the field at the race on Sunday. I’m a little scarred by the vision of seeing her go down, but I was also assured by some of the other racers that this was an unusual Cat 4 race. So I might try another one. We’ll see…

Cam’s race was longer, and apparently he had too many glasses of water in the days leading up to the race. He emptied his bladder numerous times before the race, but couldn’t make it through the whole race without emptying again! With a lap to go, I watched the main field come by without Cam. Then a couple minutes later, he came slowly riding up the road. He’d had to make another pit stop and was done racing!

We both made it through the day with less than stellar results but good workouts nonetheless. The birthday weekend was very fun, we ate Atlas burritos on the way to Bettendorf, and we made it back to Iowa City for the crit (just to watch) on Sunday!