Race report: Granogue—ridin’ dirty

By Ian Landau

After my meltdown in Providence, I considered giving up on my 2009 cross campaign. But as the disaster that was Rhode Island faded in the rear-view mirror, I started to feel better about continuing to race and just seeing if things would get better. Maybe Providence was my Waterloo, but I wasn’t imprisoned on Elba. I still could race my bike, for crying out load.

So my goal for last weekend’s Granogue was just to complete the race and ride hard for 45 minutes.

I’d gone into this season eyeing the MAC series overall. I never thought I could win the series, but top 10 seemed doable, maybe even top 5. A series rewards consistency, after all. You don’t have to win any races; you just have to be up there near the top accumulating points.

But after Providnce any thought of the overall points race was gone.

Anyway, on to the race.

The weekend weather forecast was crap. I got up at 5 Saturday morning and was just glad it wasn’t raining. That changed on the way down the New Jersey Turnpike: Rains pelted my teammate Mark’s car, and I knew we were in for some rough conditions. We pulled into the bucolic DuPont estate outside Wilmington and parked in a sea of mud.

As Mark had just 20 minutes till his Cat. 4 race, I pinned his numbers on his jersey and watched him rush to the start line sans warm-up. I got changed, hopped on my bike, and hollered for some teammates in the 4 race. Kissena’s Dave Trimble rode well, putting his mountain-biking skills to work to take 6th. Elsewhere on the course, Mark looked to be having fun in the mud.

As the 4 race wound down, I hovered near the staging area. Last year I got shafted at the start of Granogue. You might think the organizers and officials would stage us in some kind of order, but they ended up letting it be a free-for-all with no rhyme or reason. I started two rows from the back in 2008 and managed to eke out 34th, a result I was satisfied with considering where I’d started.

Unsure of what would happen this year, I made certain I was ready to get a good spot if it indeed turned into a free-for-all. As more riders hovered in the starting pen, the officials said we’d be staged in numbered order by registration. Phew!

I’d registered early and was wearing bib No. 715. That put me in the third row, a fine starting position.

I hate waiting on the start line. I might seem cool and calm, but I’m a pretty wound-up guy. I’m working on this, but I get anxious for the race to start once I’m lined up. And when it’s raining and 40 degrees, standing there waiting for the gun to go off is downright painful.

It didn’t take long to stage the whole field, and the officials announced the course had been shortened from the Cat. 4 race. It didn’t seem to matter. The course was going to be a beast no matter what.

The gun went off. I moved past a few guys in the first few meters to jump into the top 10. Just before we rolled off the pavement and onto the grass, I made another jump and was sitting in 4th or 5th wheel as we hit the first bit of slop. Going around the first few turns I was surprised to see the guys up in the front riding tentatively.

In a sweeping turn before we hit a short stretch of pavement, I took an outside line that allowed me to motor through some grass, as opposed to the thick mud in the middle of the course. It was a much faster line than anybody ahead of me had taken, and, as we got onto the pavement, I had some momentum. I jumped out of the saddle on the pavement and sprinted into the lead.

Holy shit! I’m in the fucking lead of the race. I took one look back and I had a few meters’ gap. I bombed inot the next section of downhill twists and turns and looked again over my shoulder. I had a real gap.

I hit the first run-up and bobbled a bit. It was so slick you were actually better off walking quickly than running, which just increased your chances of falling over. My running sucks anyway, so I wasn’t all that surprised to see the chasers making up ground on the steep incline.

At the top I still held the lead. I can’t remember exactly where I got caught, but I know that by the time I hit the next run-up leading up to the famed Granogue tower, there was a guy in BBC jersey ahead of me. A few more guys passed me, including Pete Baiamonte of Brooklyn Velo Force (BVF), a rider I always try to stay with.

Again, the timing was hazy but into lap two I was riding top 10. On the third of four laps, I had stop on the first run-up to prevent myself from gagging. That was a big drag, but I think I passed everyone who got by me while I was at a dead stop, my feet sinking deeper into the muck.

When I got the bell, I remember thinking, I don’t give a damn what happens, I just want to ride this lap as hard as I can and leave everything out here.

To my surprise, I rode the last lap stronger than any of the previous ones. I think there were two guys who’d passed me on the run-up the previous lap who were still ahead. On the off-cambers leading from the tower back down to the start-finish stretch, I crushed them, moving well ahead. I hit the pavement for the last few hundred meters and sprinted as hard as I could.

Result: 16th. Good for 11 MAC points.

I learned a few important things out there:

• I was smart not to give up on my season.
• I’m a mudder.
• I’ve diagnosed my mucous/gagging problem. I thought it was from post-nasal drip, but given my wheezing after the race, I think I have an exercise-induced-asthma condition. Seeing a doc tomorrow, so we’ll see what he says.

This weekend is Westwood Velo Cross. Last year, I rolled a rear tire when riding in the top 15 and ended up changing my wheel and fighting for whatever places I could get back.

This year, I will have the respiratory issues ironed out, I hope, and be able to race the full 45 minutes au bloc. The goal will be to keep the gas on for the entire race.

As happy as I was to finish strong at Granogue, I felt my strength at the finish showed I could’ve given more earlier in the race. So Westwood will be an experiment of sorts.

But the real racing starts again the following weekend at Beacon and HPCX. Now that I’m 48th in the B masters series race, it’s time move up.