The saying on one of the t-shirts the volunteers were wearing said something like “It’s not about strategy, it’s about survival”. Fair enough, but in my book survival is a strategy, and success will be determined by the tactics you’ve chosen to get there.
The short version is that I believe I maximized my result through some pretty good tactical decision making. I made an error in the criterium that I’ll beat myself up over for a while, but I was in the sprint for the win (a rarity) and managed 10th, placing me 17th overall in the General Classification.
MHCC is a great race and the final stage happens literally down the street from my house (8 blocks to be exact – I couldn’t park much closer). I guess location is important for the same reasons that it’s a big deal for somebody from Indiana t0 compete in the Indy 500. It’s just part of our culture here and it is an immense privilege to participate.
There were a relatively large number of local riders participating. I had four Mountain View teammates in the Cat 4 Men field (Karl Mikkelson, Tony Dirks, Eric Moody and John Kenney). Lara signed up at the last minute with
Albert Gonzalez in the Prologue
a few of the other girls to ride in the Cat 3-4 Women race and there were a few locals in the Masters field, and my friend Albert Gonzales came up from Southern California and rode the Pro 1-2 field in the Mountain View kit and finishing 4th in the crit field sprint (44th on GC).
Highlights were Lara’s road race, on Saturday, which was 72 miles with 8,500 feet of climbing and she killed it – finishing 11th ahead of all but a few Cat 3’s, and our friend Andy Olsson (riding in a mountain biking costume) was fourth in the road race. We were well supported by the team members that weren’t riding the race for a variety of excuses that included only one good reason…
Anyhow, for Cat 4 Men this race is brutal. It’s close to 200 miles over 4 days
Me and 3 Mt View team mates in the crit
with about 18,000 feet of climbing, and an extremely “interesting” criterium course in downtown Hood River. Course Overview
I’ll write more about the race later, as I’m off to the race shop now to prepare the Miatacage.com Spec Miata for the Portland Rose Cup Races this weekend. If all goes well today and tomorrow I may register for the Elkhorn Classic Stage Race in Baker City, Oregon the next weekend. That would be 3 weekends of racing in a row… How often will an opportunity like that present itself?
First things first.