› Cherry Pie Road Bike Race, Our first road bike race!
Race date: Sunday, February 19, 2006
Harrisburg, Oregon
Written by: Gina Miller
The FASTeam: Gina Miller, Mary "Maria" Yax, Renee "Renata" Scott and Robin "Favorita" Laughlin
To start with and to get in the bike racing mood, we all gave ourselves Italian names. Easy for me since “Gina” is Italian. Mary became Maria, Renee, Renata and Robin was Favorita. It was tough to find an Italian name that translates to Robin in English, so we went for the stretch – Robin means “queen” and Favorita is a variant of queen in Italian… it literally means “competitor who holds a pre-eminent position” so we thought that was a good match for her.
The road bike race we participated in is called “Cherry Pie." The winners of each category (six deep) get homemade cherry pies – that beats a medal any day! It’s the first race of the season for most people, so it’s a good one given it was our first race. We raced with the Women’s Category 4 riders, this is the “beginner” category for women. I’m not sure how many there were but somewhere between 40 and 50. We were happy to oblige and race with the rest of the novice women especially given that the race distances increase with each category. Our race was a one-lap 22 mile race but the big-boys and girls were doing 44 and 66 miles. We looked the part of a team all decked out in our FreshAirSports jerseys and cool vests. Favorita was carrying the Sunnyside Sports team banner, but we let her play with us anyway!
Coming from triathlon where you are always trying hard to keep a significant distance from your fellow cyclists to avoid drafting penalties, it’s odd to do exactly the opposite in bike racing by trying to stay as close as possible to your competitors to take advantage of the draft. Even harder with beginners whose bike-handling skills can be sketchy. You don’t necessarily want to be right on someone’s wheel when they squeeze their brakes…hard, right in front of you.
Maria had the first experience with this – not a half a mile into the race, a woman in front of Maria got a little squirrely as she bumped her front wheel into Favorita’s rear wheel, causing her to crash. Favorita didn't let it phase her and she continued on and Maria very elegantly rode over the top of the girl on the ground and stayed up right. I was very impressed. I swerved over to the left to avoid the collision being careful of the “don’t go over the yellow center line” rule, which was just about impossible given the situation. One competitor out – go Maria!
We continued at a pretty steady state for most of the next 15 miles or so. There was a ton of surging and “accordion” effect from riders braking then accelerating, breaking…accelerating. The pace increased a bit right before the biggest climb on the course. My legs were starting to get a little tired from the increased pace and I was just wondering how I was going to get up this hill when Maria flew by me and said something to the effect of “don’t lose the lead group at the top of the hill.” That was motivation so I sucked it up and tried to keep up with Maria. We were there working together hoping to see Renata and Favoria. Given my inability to look behind me a stay in a straight line, I couldn’t tell where they were! We crested the hill and on the descent, Maria “can I go any faster” Yax was haulin’ down the hill at about 37-38 mph. I was behind her and saw another rider not paying any attention drift over and force Mary over the yellow line. Mary recovered like a pro and kept going then gave her a very polite tongue lashing on the next incline.
We got to the bottom of the last descent close to the same time and realized that the lead women’s group wasn’t too far ahead of us – they were within our site. We found a third straggler and tried to work with her to bridge the gap to the lead group. She didn’t quite get what we were trying to do, so Maria pulled in front to show her – she was flying! I stayed on her wheel and we each took a couple of pulls, but to no avail, we started a little too late and couldn’t get to the main group in time. The third girl sort of dropped off, so Maria and I sprinted for the finish line, finishing at just about exactly the same time. Renata and Favorita pulled in just a minute or so later. We have a lot to learn about the “team sport” of cycling, how to ride smarter and more efficiently, but we had a blast. We were so excited and had such a great time that by the time we got home Sunday evening, were strategizing on our next bike race. Renata’s email first thing Monday morning was titled “Okay, what’s next?” So there you go, we’re all hooked!
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