This looks just like China, except no yaks or yurts…
The Porcupine race weekend is over. Big thanks go out to Mike Meldrum for putting on two great races back to back. I don’t know what to say about the Porcupine Hillclimb on Saturday other than ouch and nice work to Mike and all his volunteers for providing a well organized event for a great cause. I went a fair amount outside of myself going up the steep section through Storm Mountain and then paid the price for the rest of the way up the canyon. I was a little worried about Sunday’s race after trashing myself so severely. Saturday evening we all headed out to get a massage and I felt like it helped a lot.
AJ had given me a rundown on the Chalk Creek course from what he knew. Looking at the surrounding terrain really didn’t give you much of a clue about what the race would be like. I had heard there wasn’t tons of elevation gain so I thought I wouldn’t be too bad off. I figured that with two loops between Coalville and Wanship we’d all be feeling pretty good for the 50 miles of out-and-back along Chalk Creek.
AJ and BadMF were both super-active during all of the attacks during the loops between Coalville and Wanship. It’s always relieving when you’ve got a guy in every move. The boys lit it up as usual. The field regrouped by the end of the loops each time around.
There were quite a few attacks heading out of town to the out-and-back up Chalk Creek. Everyone was together on the first short climb and I could hear quite a few people involved in conversations about fishing. I thought for sure we were safe because J-Lao digs the subject. I was wrong. Soon J-Lao is killing it the last bit of the climb and fortunately I made it on the back. We were 6 riders and drilling it. There were a lot of rollers and the pace just did not let up. Long story short, it ends up that I somehow survive J-Lao’s pace and he and I end up with a growing gap.
I knew I was in trouble when he turned back and said, “We have to take all the hills hard and fast.” I was wondering what we had been doing up to that point and became immediately concerned about what hard and fast really meant. J-Lao was going up the climbs into the headwind using an incredibly hard gear and I was +/-1.2 cm off of his rear wheel trying to stay out of the wind.
I kept looking around each corner to hopefully see the feed-zone. I was ok with water, but I wanted a benchmark for our location on the course. I attempted to calculate a conversion of KMs to miles to figure out how many KMs equal 45 miles and with my brain oxygen-deficit situation I could not do it. I knew Crispy was in the feed zone with cold water waiting. We finally made it there, re-supplied and kept on rolling. J-Lao said to save some energy for after the turn-around since we would have a tailwind. Here are a few portions of our conversations on the road:
“This looks just like China,” referenced J-Lao nostalgically of his experience racing the Tour of Xinghai Lake in China, “except there are no yaks or yurts out here.” J-Lao then inquired, “Did you know that yaks are typically revered by the families that own them? Or that wild yaks are twice the size of domestic yaks?”
“That’s…cool,” huffed DH holding back a cough. “I…didn’t know that,” choked DH.
********
“If we can beat this headwind we’ve got it made,” encouraged J-Lao. “Hey, did you hear what river those guys were talking about before we got away?” he asked. “I brought the gear with me after I do another 30 miles when the race is over.”
“I hope…we get…there quick,” DH winced in answering. “I don’t…know what… river.”
********
“We’ve only got 1km to go to the turnaround. We can’t lose time here,” J-Lao explained.
“Uggghhhh,” grunted DH, imagining getting dropped at the turn-around and spit out the back of the chase when they caught him.
********
When we did make the turn-around we started down the hill and at about 1km past the turn-around we passed the chasers. I figured that gave us a fairly decent gap, but I was still nervous because I was only providing limited assistance to our move. J-Lao was putting the hammer down with what appeared to be relative ease. I kept trying to identify landmarks that would indicate how much longer my suffering would continue. My pulls were an exercise in concentration, focusing only on keeping my speed at a maximum and taking the straightest line down the road. Finally we were to the last climb and the moto-referee came alongside to tell us we had over 3 minutes. It was not far to the finish and a lot of it was downhill. I was immediately relieved.
J-Lao pushed the pace at 1km to go and I dropped it to the small ring, happy to have made it to the finish. I think he could have made that effort all by his lonesome but kindly let me along for the ride. That was one of the hardest 2nd places ever.
[Editor’s note: J-Lao’s portion of the conversation is based on truthful statements, embellished by the author to accentuate the ease with which J-Lao was able to keep the pace high and destroy the field. DH’s portion is exactly based on truthful gasps and coughs.]