Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sunshine Hill Climb

Bill Stalhuth, affectionately & accurate know as Big Ring Bill, wrote the following short story about the 45 Plus race at the Sunshine Hill Climb. Bill's word do a tremendous job of giving you an inside feel of what this race was like. Bill was too humble to include this in his story, but he finished second.

Big Ring Bill : in the cool, wet dark I set my bike on the trainer before working registration. I wrapped a plastic bag on the saddle against the rain I thought inevitable. During the two hours of registration, the growing light seemed to indicate that we might dodge the bullet and have a dry race. There were even rumors that the road was dry all the way to the top of the canyon.
Released from the registration table, I got in 21 minutes of warm-up and then hurried to the line.

As we started up the canyon I noticed some old faces and a few I didn't recognize. Noticed that I feel a little paranoid about the matriculation of new climbing talent. After a mile or so, Jimi took up his usual position at the front and I took his wheel. The pace notched up, the peloton leaned down on its way to becoming single file--the usual configuration of Jimi acting as the prowl of the ship before detaching himself, not to be seen again until the finish line. This year was different.
Two guys, Charlie Hayes and a Amgen/Read D rider saddled up along Jimi and upped the pace further. We hit the first series of switch backs and were soon a group of five with a Great Divide rider rounding us out. For some minutes I rode with this group feeling I was no longer riding within myself. I knew things would level off around Poorman Road before getting really steep again. I thought if I turned myself inside-out I could stay with these guys till then, but made the decision to fall back into a more steady pace. Three ascended away from me and Great Divide rider stayed at my side.

From that point on I just focused on holding my effort and pace, staying relaxed on the handle bars, breathing relaxed, good cadence--all that stuff to keep my mind off my low moral of seeing the podium depart from me like a hot-air balloon. At Poorman, my wife cheered me on which was nice. After that, Great Divide was gone and I was alone. I had Jimi and the others in sight for almost the rest of the race. I kept hoping to see Jimi drop those guys. I was relieved when we hit the dirt after the rollers as the chance of riders coming back would now decrease. The dirt was damp and clay-like and tires sank 1/4 inch into it making a 38x25 feel like a 38x23. Slowly I noticed Jimi's red figure getting closer. I caught up with him on the last switch back before the flat section with its token bit of asphalt. He let me know he was having an off day and there were two riders ahead of me.

On the asphalt, I was surprised to catch the Amgen/Real D rider, even more surprised when he didn't even try to follow me, and I thought that maybe I had made the right decision doing my own pace. The last two kilometers, the conditions were Apocalyptic. The road was very wet, rain filled pot-holes, snow on the side. A thick fog reduced visibility to three bike lengths. I could hear the disembodied voices of racers descending, reviewing the race, as if I had died and entered some cycling nether-world. I plowed on though the fog, no perspective no sense of forward motion and saw the finish right before hitting it.

Later waiting for my wife's CRV at the finish, I watched racers suddenly flying out of that milky void as if suddenly appearing in the transporter bay of the Enterprise. When I saw my wife who doesn't often see the races, all I could say with a grin on my face was: "Welcome to my world."

As mentioned Bill finished 2nd, Jimi 3rd, and Chris L. in 5th. We did not have as a good a story teller for the 35 Plus race, but needless to say it was equally hard. The race went from the gun, and after the initial splits there were not many changes. Matt S took 4th (missing the podium in a sprint on the line after 9 miles of climbing.............), Matt G. was 7th and Marc was 9th.

Here are some photos from the race compliments of www.303cycling.com. The first 2 are of the early part of the 45 Plus race and Jimi, Bill and Matt V. can be seen. The 3rd and 4th pictures are of the 35 plus race, which was just breaking up at the time. Matt G. can be seen covering Rich Davis from Rio in the 3rd picture. In the 4th picture Matt S. is sitting in 4th place. Amazing that photo is about 1 mile into the race, and the order the first 4 guys are in at that point, is exactly how they finished, over 40 minutes later. Thanks again 303 Cycling for the pics.















Unfortunately we did not have any photos of the top of the race course, to truly show you how epic this was. Local racer and photographer Dejan Smaic was up there and took the following referenced photos. Check out all his work at http://sportifimages.com/ and consider buying some race shots.
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