Yes, I race my bike...but nothing like those guys!

    So, I fell in love with bike racing in the summer of 1987 when an Irishman named Stephen Roche won the grand tour called Le Tour de France by only forty seconds.  Those who are not familiar with grand tour professional bike racing, there are three grand tours from May until September.  Those races include: the Giro de Italia; Tour de France; and Vuelta a Espana.  All of them last three weeks and cover over 2,300 miles.  Each day is about 110 miles of racing but can be as long as 160 miles.    Usually, the racers get two off days but even those days you gotta ride.  The big one is the Tour de France.  It's a like the Super Bowl of cycling.

    The tour is big-time! Each day is called a "stage."  Most of the stages are mass starts.  This means that all the racers line up start together and race from point A and race to point B. Sometimes the mass start stages are on flat courses and other  (usually fewer) are climb courses.  On flat days, the race will boil down to a 400 meter sprint.  At the end, 95% of the racers that started will finish together.  This makes for spectacular crashes.  The sprinters get up to 40+ mph.  Here is a YouTube video to give you an idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpzlzwMXQw8.  You can see that this stuff is fast and crazy. 

    Climb stages include  small climbs and some epic climbs. Here is a link from VeloNews to one of the epic climbs where the racers climb the famous Col du Tourmalet http://velonews.competitor.com/2010/06/tour-de-france/2010-tour-de-france-stage-profile-map-gallery_123604/attachment/tdf09_profil_et1-2d-copie-6  The final climb is just over twelve miles and it averages 7% gradient, which is pretty steep for such a long long climb.   The climb stages usually end up with no more than three to four racers fighting it out to the last meter.  Most climbs have descents that go very fast.  It's not unusual to see speeds get up to 65 mph.  There have been some tragic crashes in the Tour's history.  Most are epic crashes.  Here is one of Austin's own Lance Armstrong in the 2003 Tour de France where he did a little off-roading.  Sorry about the ad at the end of the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haEbtHiUcBc .  

    The last type of stage in the grand tour is the time trial.  There is an individual time trial and a team time trial.  In both forms of time trialing, you race from point A to point B as fast as you can.  The team time trial is rarely used so I'll talk about the individual (ITT)  from this point forward. The time trial is often called the "race of truth." It's just you against the clock.  The intensity of this race is unreal and difficult to explain unless you've done one.  Here is another YouTube video of the 2003 ITT.  It's ten minutes long but really only watch the first part (50 seconds).  The look on their faces is real. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwhKLxdkEX4 The idea behind the time trial is to push yourself to the limit and keep it there until the finish.  It is very painful - both mentally and physically.  The distances range from five mile to over thirty miles.  Most Tour de France racers can average 28-31 mph.  That is beyond fast.

    I don't race like these guys.  Most of us doing amateur races regionally and/or nationally don't race like this.  In the America, amateur bike racers do three types of races and they are: one day road races, which are similar to a single stage in the Tour de France; time trials; and criteriums.  We also do stage races but our stage races are usually no longer than three stages.  Mostly, we do one day road races ranging from 30 to 65 miles.  But most of the races we do are called criterium  (crit) races.  Crits are not determined by distance but rather by time. They take place on a short course ranging from 0.7 miles to 1.2 miles.  In other words, we go around a short course over and over for 40 minutes and up to 75 minutes.  We only know that we're about to finish when the officials show laps to go cards.  They usually start showing us lap cards with five laps to go.  They are usually very spectator friendly and very fast!  Here is yet another YouTube video shot by KGS Bikes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wFAatckleA&feature=fvsr with a helmet cam on one of the racers.  This race is a weekly race series here in Austin called the Driveway Series.   These races are very fun and sometimes involve smarts as well as fitness.  Most crits are on technical courses and can have tight 90 degree turns, short steep climbs, etc.  Becoming a good crit racer or "critter" takes some time for most.  Average speed for the entire race hover in the 25.5 mph, so these are not slow.  The nice thing about crits is it takes all shapes and sizes.  They're not like climb races that require you to be 125 pounds to survive.  Most great critters are big sprinters, which I am not.   Nonetheless, they are so fun.  

    I got my race license in 1994.  Yes, you have to have a USA Cycling racing license to race bikes.  The good thing is there is no test to get one.  In 1994, I entered two road races and a three day stage race two in Louisiana and one in Texas.  Long story short - I got dropped like a rock in each one.  I got discouraged and stopped racing my bike and picked up triathlons.  I enjoyed that for years but was missing something.  With college and then law school I rode off and on for seven years. But in 2008, I lined up for my own comback.  I raced in the 2008 Houston Grand Crit and did pretty good.  I didn't place but I held on to the pack and finished in the sprint group.  I was very excited and there began my true addiction to racing my bike. 

    I now race from January to October.  We are lucky here in Texas to have the weather to do that.  I've had pretty good results in the past two and a half years but continue to learn every time I line up and race.  Sometimes it's something as simple as always pack you bike shoes before a race or you'll have to squeeze into your wife's bike shoes.  Racing my bike has allowed me to meet really great friends.  At this time of the year, we are all patiently waiting for the 2011 racing schedule to start planning.  It's like mom and dad giving you a list of toys and saying here pick some but not all. 

Driveway race Ardie and me up the corkscrew hurting.

Robert and me warming up before the Driveway

    As the new schedule arrives I will list the races I plan on doing and then report on the race.  Should be a great season.  I have some shots of this year's racing. 

Individual Time Trial Tour de Gruene