The Black Sabbath

race: 93
name: The Black Sabbath
article:

My Sunday morning actually began as a continuation of my Saturday evening… I was roaming the grounds of the Saddle and Cycle Club at an ADA gala selling raffle tickets to the stratosphere of Chicago high society until 3:00 AM. I then took a quick nap and swapped my black monkey suit for… my OTHER black monkey suit just in time for Julian to pick me up at the way, way too early hour of 10:00 AM. He was rewarded for his transportation generosity with a steaming pile of verbal abuse when we rolled into the Fox River Grove Cycling Challenge with just 180 minutes to spare. Alas, I probably needed the extra time to caffeinate and shake out cognitive cobwebs from the previous evening.

Before I recap our race, I need to throw some hardman points at Nick Gierman for having giant stones. Stones so hard and round that Zipp wants to patent them for their next generation of wheel bearings, which I hear will be called their CeramNick line. I watched Nick bust a spoke when he attempted to mate his front wheel with a competitor’s rear skewer on the downhill section of the course. Don’t fret, ladies, because Nick kept his cool and did his ‘mates proud by continuing to stick in the front group despite a wheel that was less stable than a Trixie on Clark Street after last call. Later in the day, when I was navigating those same descents, I found myself wondering how Nick made it through that 35mph roller coaster with his face intact. Huzzah, Nick. Well played.

There was a time when I would have salivated over this course like Homer discovering the Gummi di Milo.

In the old days, like in 2006, I would daydream about hilly races and decorate their dates on my calendar with little hearts and doves. These days I’ve been working to navigate my way around a new job and a new marriage and an addiction to the improbable Cubs and… just be thankful that I don’t keep a blog. The short story is that when Julian, Andreas, Hermanas and I rolled up to the line and saw only 25 guys or so in the Cat 3 race, my initial thought was “Nowhere to hide.”

USAC’s Dave Fowkes gave us some epic pre-race instructions: “There’s a big uphill and then a big downhill. If Mother Nature tries to kill you, we’ll go ahead and ring the bell for a sprint. Go fast, turn left, good luck.” Tweet!

It was on the first lap that I found myself once again laughing internally at the Great Uniform Trend of 2008. XXX-AthletiCo, Get a Grip, vitaminwater-Trek and a rider from U of Wisconsin swarmed the front on the first ascent, creating an artificial midnight upon the hill with an epic convergence of black uniforms. When we crested the summitt, we were then greeted with a not-so-artificial midnight. At some point prior to our race, a wall of ink-colored thunderheads had anchored at eye-level just across the Fox River valley. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who realized that the front of the field would have a sudden and distinct advantage if the officials rang the bell early.

On the second trip up the hill, it was evident that Midwest riders are rarely called upon to tax their entire range of gears. Bikes crunched and squealed as their jockeys struggled to negotiate a compromise with the climbing gods. I could certainly relate, as back in my pre-SRAM days I lost more than one round to the gear gremlins. On this day however, my 11-26 cassette would be my best friend – I found a little happy place to spin around in each time we tackled the pitch.

While Chip and Aspen from Get A Grip threw some flurries in the early going, it was the xXx train that was dishing the most pain. Luke Seemann (that famous guy from that website and that story in Chicago Magazine) and John Tomlinson traded surges off the front while I personally concentrated on not committing manslaughter-by-bike upon the spectators when winding my way down the backside of the course. My personal rhythm was basic: If I worked on the downhill at all, I would lose spots on the climb. If I worked hard on the climb, I would be hanging on for sheer survival on the descent. Pretty simple, I just had to time my recovery in order to stay in the race. As a team, we did our best to shut down our opponents’ gambles… I saw Julian fly by on his rental bike to chase down one ominous threat, while Andreas made me look like a flailer with his awesome descending, closing gaps at will. However, we didn’t have much in the way of an offense in this race. Personally, once I had located a viable wheel, I was content to be towed around.

When a prime was announced with five or so laps to go, Luke, Chip and JT (I think) bolted off the front. I had the front row seat and helplessly watched them ride away. After Chip scored the double-sawbuck, he and his breakmate dialed down their pace on the climb… but Luke kept going… In fact, I distinctly heard Luke shift into a larger gear and proceed to melt the face off of the course with a scorching trip up the hill. I thought two things in succession. 1) He’d already raced today, and maybe it won’t stick. 2) He’s going so fast, I’m a spectator anyways. My reservations were not shared by chasers from Bicycle Heaven and the Polish American Cycling Team Cycling Team, who spent the next lap or so reeling Luke in to form the podium break. I’ll say that you can count the veedub-Trekkies among those who are very pleased to see Luke notch his big Cat 3 ‘W’ … There was no luck or fortunate circumstances involved. On this day, he was decisively stronger than his competitors… kudos! We've never taken XXX lightly (Ed Amstutz made sure of that last year), but now they have talent AND numbers in the threes... it's gonna be a hot summer!

In the race’s final laps, ABD’s Tim Keeley and I were joined by Andreas and newly-anointed Cat 3 Peter Strittmatter, the XXXer who had just notched a Cat 4 win at Cobb Park on Saturday. I used what little reserves I had in the tank on the final journey up the hill and led the group down the backside. The small gap I’d created was sure to evaporate, so I backed off, hoping to do something for Andreas, but he was on fourth wheel and my hesitation gave the advantage to Peter and Tim, who made it around the last corner with all the momentum on their side and duked it out between them for fourth and fifth, respectively.

A climbing challenge like this is certainly an anomaly in our Chicagoland calendar, but I was happy to be back IN a race and not just AT a race. Many thanks to RDS Cycling and especially to the local residents for allowing us full closure of the roads. Hopefully I didn’t scare any of you with my cornering.