More thoughts on the GPSF

As Buck noted, the number of starters at the San Francisco Grand Prix was certain to double that of the finishers, if not more...and the race known as the "toughest one-day race in North America" certainly lived up to its reputation as being a leg breaker. And a back breaker. And an arm breaker. Yes, you heard right - your arms get pretty tired of yanking on the handlebars by the end of the 4.5 hour race. Have a look at any of the photos and you start to think that the Governor of California ("The Governator" was by far the best T-shirt we saw all weekend) himself might be able to ride the San Fran race not too badly by simply using his arms!

The race started out the same as last year, with a few super quick start-loop parade laps at 50-odd km/h, and then a fast transition into the first rolling climbs of the course. The legs felt good, but similar to last year it was quite cold and damp at the start. It is always a guessing game when it is cold like this - dress too warmly and you run the risk of overheating like crazy when the sun comes out (as it did last year after 1/2 of the race); dress too light, and you ride around shivering and using up extra energy to stay warm...especially bad for the muscles that need to turn the pedals around. This year I think even us cold-hardened-Canadians were riding around freezing a lot of the time in the first half of the race, and for myself it showed when I started to feel the beginnings of cramps in my legs for no apparent reason only a couple of laps in. I thought, "great, the race might be over before we even get to go hard". I babied my legs for a couple more laps, and they eventually started to come around.

Myself and Andrew were especially trying to save valuable strength each time up the steep walls of Filmore and Taylor streets, but this might have been our downfall. Last year this was certainly the race-tactic of choice since the real efforts needed on the climbs didn't come until very late in the race, when the early break started to slow down and come back to the main bunch. At that point you knew that you had to be ready for the $#!@ to hit the fan, so to speak. This year we thought we had things well in hand, riding tempo (in other words, just a %-point below full-tilt in our 39x28 gearing!) up the climbs with almost all of the big-hitters and San Fran GP winners from previous years - guys like Horner, Hincapie, Rodriguez, Dionne, etc. However, in this year's edition, the early breakaway group which established itself on the first lap caused a stiff reaction in the main field, keeping the pace quite fast for the first three big laps. A very untimely-for-us split happened farther ahead on the climb on the third big loop, leaving the Jetfuelers and lots of the big-shooters in the main group dangling about 30 seconds to 1 minute back for the next few laps. Going ballistic for a lap and closing the gap solo wasn't really something we had planned on (and it didn't exactly work out so well for Rodriguez and Dionne later either, but they made valiant efforts nonetheless), so we just had to be patient to see how things unfolded.

Out of that front split, a chunk of riders stomped their way clear, and a large number fell back. The leg-breaking effects of all of the climbing was taking its toll, and there were riders all over the course at this point in many different groups, breaking-up and re-forming all the time. Andrew and I just rode cleverly for the last several laps, making sure we didn't miss anything else going away on the climbs. At this point we knew the front of the race was gone, never to be seen again, but we wanted to keep any remaining dignity we had. Plus, all of the physical difficulties aside, this San Fran course is truly one of the most the fun and technical road race loops I have ever done, and the screaming hordes of fans on the climbs make it even more epic. So, in the closing laps of the race, we just gutted it out for whatever scraps were left, and tried to enjoy the suffering as much as we could. I made one last decent effort in the last 3 km to get to the front of our group (there was still going to be a sprint for the last of the money placings) but then in the last corner discretion had to be the better part of valour when I got chopped by a particularly frustrated Canadian Webcor rider, and ended up 35th. Not terrible, but next year hopefully we can enjoy the suffering from the front group.

Many thanks to Dave, Kevin, Johnny, Eric and his great family, Mark and Alison, Rod, Tracey, and everyone else behind the scenes for making such a great weekend possible.

photos from SF
I posted a few more photos from San Fran into our SF/GP Gallery