UCI Road World Championships 2015 - Day 4

Let's go ride!

Today’s competition involved only the elite men riding Individual Time Trials and they didn’t start until 1:00 pm.

As a result, I got up and took a ride myself on a glorious Virginia day with sunshine and around 60 degrees at 8:00 am. Yep, it was awesome! I took off on one of my regular routes of 23 miles and even had a negative split on the return trip into the wind! I felt so good when I got back, I wasn’t even complaining about the wind. I just bored a hole through it and kept pedaling.

Off to the Races!

My assignment today was an intersection in eastern Henrico County on the Richmond-Henrico Turnpike. (Turnpike is a quaint old word. Many years ago, these were the first toll roads in America. Today, it’s just another street.)

This particular neighborhood is one of many small, older homes, and the inhabitants are primarily African-Americans. It sits less than a mile from Richmond International Raceway, on the northeast side of the city.

I arrived just before my requested appearance time of 11:30 (which seemed awfully early for an afternoon start) and I pulled up behind a Henrico Police cruiser that was parked there. The officer got out as I did and we introduced our selves. He was Officer Andy Brook, a 12 year veteran of the force. Super nice guy, too! We had a wonderful time chatting over the next 4 hours.

As I was setting up, a man came out of the house next to my car and started to

Sid and his lovely wife Shirley
Cheering the cyclists

unfold a lawn chair and place it near the road. He asked me when the race would be starting and I told him it would be at least a two hours before the first rider showed up. We introduced ourselves, his name was Sid – retired from UPS and now the president of the neighborhood watch. Another great guy! He offered something to drink, a bathroom, whatever we needed. I felt like I was at a church picnic or something.

And y'all better behave!

Soon after, a large group of kids and moms showed up across the street, plopped themselves down, and started asking questions about the race. I was able to answer them and talk about when they’d be coming through and how we should

cheer and clap for all of them because it’s a very hard race. The kids started practicing their cheers, including a dance line number, and everyone was ready.

I’d like to point out that every one of the moms spent time parenting. Every time one of the kids would start to act up, they’d get the kids back in line by using their MOM VOICE. The MOM VOICE, which is all powerful, is a lot like MOM SPIT which is all powerful for removing dirt from things. (If you don’t know what this is, you’ve been spoiled all your life.) In other words, it gets stuff done.

Frankly, they sounded like my mom when I was a kid. It was very refreshing to me; I’m used to parents letting kids do whatever they hell they want instead of correcting behaviors. Thanks Moms!

Riders Up! Finally…..

Once the riders began at Kings Dominion amusement park, about 20 miles from our position, it would take them some time to get to us. I pulled up the live feed on my phone and walked around showing everyone what was happening at the start. Most struggled with the notion of a race that doesn’t have everyone starting together. I finally got somewhere talking about speed skating in the Olympics where people start 2 at a time, but their times are compared at the end. Even if you lose your heat, your time may be fast enough to win a medal. That seemed to get the point across.

Around 1:40, the first rider appeared, coming up the hill at a brisk pace. He was wearing number 70 and would be followed every 90 seconds by someone else. At least that’s how they started. Right away, we had 2 riders show up out of order and I then had to explain mechanical failures and flats. Everyone was fascinated by the idea of a bike change happening like a NASCAR pit stop. The kids kept hoping someone would flat coming up the hill so they could see it.

Taylor Phinney powers up the hill!

Riders continued for the better part of 2 hours with the last one passing by about 3:45. The spectators in our little area hung around for the entire time! Every time a motorcycle would appear around the bend, indicating the next rider was coming, moms would say, “Here comes another one!” and the kids would all jump to their feet or stop what they were doing and start clapping and cheering! It was awesome! (At one point before the first rider came through, a cyclist who wasn’t racing, came up the hill and he got a cheer, too. His grin was awesome!) Sid and his wife Shirley would wave their American Flags at each rider, too.

All this time, cars kept appearing at our cross street and the officer would wave them across when it was safe to do so. No one got upset, no one lost their temper, and the riders were all kept safe and exhorted to do well.

I think our spot was the best on the course. We got everyone involved and it was great fun.

I’m not sure if any of these kids will grown up to be bike racers but you could tell they were intrigued by the whole thing. They were asking me about the bikes, why they looked so different, how they worked, what the disc wheels did, etc. They all said the saddles looked uncomfortable. When I pointed out it was all about making you go faster and that’s why they used them, they began to get the idea of sacrifice in order to get speed. You could tell that they were understanding that sacrifice was something you do in order to get something; in this case, a world championship.

Winners

Vasil Kiryienka of Belarus put up a smoldering time of 1:02:29 over the difficult 33.2 mile course to claim the rainbow jersey. This was the biggest win of the 31 year old’s pro career and he was lauded for such a strong performance. 2^nd went to Adriano Malori and Italy who put up a time that was only 9 seconds slower. He held the top spot for about an hour before Kiryienka came through. Frenchman Jerome Coppel finished 3^rd, another 17 seconds back. American Taylor Phinney, fresh off a gold medal in the team time trial with BMC, could do no better than 12^th.

Observations

Time trials are not very spectator friendly if you don’t know what’s going on. I feel very good about educating a small group of people today on the nuances of it.

Richmonders want to enjoy the bike races. Truly. And they also want to show the world a good time. But most are not very worldly and it shows to some degree. 

Geography is not a strong suit here. (I was asked for the location of several countries after the riders went past. I started asking them to Google it. The kids were all over it, too.)

Tomorrow is a no-race day as the competitors get some practice on the road course. I’ll be working the Fan Fest for a few hours.

Friday starts the road course with Sunday being the big race as the Elite Men ride 16 laps or 162 miles!

Bicycle racing in Richmond? Seriously?????

 

Official Logo

2015 UCI World Road Championships, aka The Worlds, were awarded to Richmond VA about 4 years ago. This caused the entire population of the state capital to say, “Huh?” Admittedly, this was not long after the city negotiated to host the Washington Redskins football team for their summer camp by ponying up $10 million to build a new training facility and pay the ‘Skins $500K a year. (Good thing these guys weren’t at Versailles.)

In any case, all of us cyclists were very excited by the opportunity presented by holding The Worlds in the US for the first time since 1986 and in our hometown, no less! As I told MB, if I worked hard and trained for the entire four years, I’d be in good enough shape to spectate.

Once the dates were locked in, I made arrangements to take time off for the entire week because I wanted to really dig into the event and experience it at a different level. I subsequently signed up to volunteer every day!

Daily Updates?

That’s what I’m going to shoot for. I have other stuff going on this week, too, but MB is out of town watching our grandkids while their parents take a well-deserved break. That means I’m likely to be staying up a little later and will have the time.

If I fail, be sure to complete the survey offered at the end of each blogpost and express your displeasure. Can’t find the link? Sorry about that.

First official day, today September 20, 2015.

While yesterday was listed as a kickoff, it was just a training day for teams to ride the TTT course. I didn’t bother to go watch but did go to the convention center where all of the offices are housed, to register, pickup my assignments and t-shirts, and get a feel for what streets would be closed and where I could park.

I spent a few hours with Google Maps figuring out where I could most likely park for my assignments and think I have them pretty locked down. Next weekend will be the most difficult because the crowds are predicted to be nuts. I’m planning to park as close to my Course Marshal assignments as possible and then riding a bike to the location if it’s too far to walk.

Today I had a location at a cross-walk (a place for spectators to cross the course between riders) that was about 10 minutes into the race. It was located 1 block from a 90 degree right hander. It was great! I got to see every single team come flying out of the turn, work to reassemble their paceline and charge up the false flat for 2 blocks to a sharp left hander.

I got to my post about 15 minutes early, met the coordinator who was giving us our directions, set up my post with my bike, a folding chair, backpack full of snacks and water, and started answering questions from people almost immediately.

It’s amazing to me that people see you with a Volunteer shirt on and think you’re an expert on everything. I’ve also found over the years that if you answer their questions with absolute conviction, people will believe you and walk away.

 Now, I also spent an hour or so familiarizing myself with the “Volunteer Manual” and downloading the RVA2015 App for my phone so I had nearly everything covered.  It took nearly 4 hours before someone asked me a question I couldn’t answer. (How far is the nearest 7-11? I asked Siri for the answer but it was farther than he wanted to go. I gotta admit, a Slurpee would have tasted really good!)

The Racing is amazing

Until you have a chance to see the best in the world at something, you truly have no idea how good the best are. I’ve seen it in golf and tennis and it’s no different in every discipline; the best are just amazing!

Yesterday, a friend and I were out riding out where we live, 25 miles northwest of the city. We were on our way back from our loop and I was feeling really good. My legs felt strong and I felt as good as I can. We were riding up a hill that I frequently struggle to hold 13 mph, and I was holding 15, easily. I had gapped my friend by about 50 yards and was pulling away when I heard him say, “Riders back.”

I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a paceline charging up behind me very quickly. They were on me in seconds and flew past me doing at least 25. Their matching kits identified them as members of the Eritrean team, one member of which won a KOM jersey at the TdF this past summer. I could only grin and marvel at how fast they were going and the apparent ease in doing so. In almost no time, they were out of sight.

When my friend and I joined back up, I asked him why he hadn’t jumped on their wheel and get dragged along past me. He said it was the same reason that I didn’t jump on and disappear with them. We simply couldn’t.

At the TTT today, I got to see team after team go flying around a turn and then accelerate past me. I got to hear them holler things at each other, mostly direction and encouragement, the occasional curse for not holding a line. Seeing a different group every 3 minutes or so allowed me the chance to notice the differences between the fastest teams and the also-rans. The faster teams, both genders, came out of the turn with a minimum of disarray, holding their tight paceline, and the front rider would pull hard right and begin to drift back as they pounded up the false flat past my post. By the time they reached my post, everyone would be back in line and they would all swing right for the next turn. Lesser teams would do less and less of that, sometimes coming around the corner looking like five or six independent riders trying to grab a wheel on a club ride.

Winners!

In the end, BMC racing repeated its reign of World Champions TTT with a 12 second victory over Etixx-Quick-Step. BMC was really focused in bringing a win to Taylor Phinney, just back from a hideous racing injury (including broken bones and ligament damage) that, up until 2 weeks ago was expected to keep him out of this event. The team had a lot of people cheering for him.

Tinkoff-Saxo finished DFL after touching wheels early on the course and sending several members to the pavement for a DNA sample. No one was seriously injured, from what I’ve read but kits and dermal layers appeared heavily damaged.

On the women’s side, Velocio-SRAM eked out a 6 second win over Boels Dolman. The interesting news here is that Velocio is this year’s version of Lululemon and both it and Boels are made up of members of that team from last year. If either team had won, they could nearly have claimed a repeat but since the winning team had actually been last year’s champion, it really was a repeat. (My friend Brad was volunteering in the corral where teams would come in after finishing their ride. He told me the teams that finished at the top just wrung themselves out; Velocio had 2 members lying on the ground vomiting and one from Boels just fell to the ground when she stopped. That’s effort!)

Observations

There was a really good crowd for a town that seems to hate cyclists; I expect total attendance today to be around 15,000. Everyone I spoke with was happy, genuinely enjoying themselves, and marveling at the athletic performances. I had hundreds of people thank me for volunteering, for helping them, for keeping them safe and giving out information.

Those people who I would describe as true fans, were enraptured with the racing. One guy came over to me, asked me to take a selfie with him as he said, “Best sports day, ever!”

It wasn’t the best one I’ve ever had but it was pretty damn good!