Race Report: Steel City Showdown April 29, 2012

The Steel City Showdown, a criterium bike race through Downtown Pittsburgh, was held on Sunday.  I woke up Sunday morning to gorgeous sunshine.   We had just endured several weeks of wet, cold, and overcast weather in Pittsburgh, and on Sunday the sun was shining.  The weather said 34 degrees when I left my house, but it felt wonderful.  I left with plenty of time before the race, so I took a laid back Sunday morning ride through the strip district, singing songs about the gorgeous day.

Getting ready

Velo Femme teammates Mary, Kate, Kim and myself met up on the North side, where we did essential pre-race activities such as pin race numbers on each other, have team gel time, and warm up on the trainers, side by side.

Group warm up on the trainers.

Once again, I was terrified of the race.  Mostly for two reasons: (1) my bike skills are pretty cruddy, particularly cornering, and (2) there were so many people watching this.  If I messed up, it would be in front of the entire city of Pittsburgh. My major goals of this race were to finish, and to learn something new.  (New is the key word here: for instance, during the race I learned that my cornering has a long way to go, but this isn't new information).

Pace lining on one of the bridges.  I spent nearly the
entire race on someone's wheel.

We lined up with the other Cat 3/4 women, and the race started.  I started near the front, but at the first corner lost the woman I was behind by a distance of about 2 bike lengths.  Then the same thing happened at the second corner, and then at the third, until the lead pack was gone.  I looked back and didn't see any of my teammates, but saw another girl who had gotten dropped along with me.  I absorbed this information and went timidly to her wheel.  At the downhill portion of the course, down the second bridge, during the first few laps Mark Rauterkus was in coach mode yelling stuff at me like, "SARAH! Get her wheel! WORK TOGETHER!!".  This actually helped me a lot (Thanks Mark), because it really helped me understand the situation clearly and gave me to confidence to boldly get on her wheel and stay there.  After a couple of laps riding on this one girl's wheel, I asked if she wanted to work together with me because I could take a turn leading.  She looked relieved, but at this point Tammy from Iron City Bikes and a few other girls caught up, Tammy yelling supportive stuff which really got us all into a pace line.  At this point, I took Tammy's wheel, which was where I spent most of the race.

You can even see in race photographs
that I need to work on my cornering.

Tammy's wheel was a great place to be.  She has years of bike racing experience, and I practiced "keeping her line" and copying what she did at every corner.  The second corner was really the brutal part of the race course.  You went into it still at downhill speeds, the pavement was riddled with potholes and sewer covers, and then it went immediately uphill on a bridge.  I got dropped at that corner every single time during the race.   Fortunately, while the group I hung with during the race had significantly better skills than I did, I was really strong on the uphill and caught up with them every time, and every time also then got a chance to rest because they were taking that hill very slow each time around.   In all the criterium literature I've read, this is exactly what you want to avoid: expending energy in ridiculous places like catching up after corners.  However, in my position as a n00b, my strength worked to my advantage because it put me in the position to be able to hold on, and from there, I could observe and watch what other experienced riders were doing.

The end of the race was kind of a mess.  At minute 26 on my computer, we got lapped by the lead pack.  We followed them into the downhill, where the cowbell started jangling.  I realized I still had all this energy from riding conservatively (even with those uphill sprints - I really need to learn how to process bicycle riding endurance into kicking ass on races), so I started going really fast too, just saying to myself, "this is either the last or second to last lap, you can sprint this for one of two laps!" and I actually stayed within range of the fast pack, so I was there watching them when they slowed down.  I was really confused, but decided that since I was lapped, I should ride around again really really fast.  I did this, and then started riding slow until I saw Anne Marie and she told me I wasn't done.  So I went a little faster, crossed the line, and decided, "Okay, NOW I'm done".  I caught up with Velo Femme teammates, and we were all riding around and being loud and fun.  Well, I am not sure how the race ended, when the race ended, how you're supposed to know when the race ended, but according to the standings I came in after my teammates at 12 laps, and the fast group did 13 laps.  What I learned here is: in a criterium, it doesn't matter where you place unless you're at the front.  I really observed this watching the men's cat 1/2/3 race, and was envious of the fact that every single one of those dudes knew what was going on.
So, maybe one day I'll be that person who knows what's going on!

After the race, we congregated in the parking lot and ate some delicious peanut butter cupcakes that Kim made, and had some delicious ice cold adult beverage:

Team sports are the best.

Then we went to one of those bars in front of PNC park, to sit in the sunshine, drink some beers and watch the women's cat 1/2/3.  It ended up we also got a great view of some Steel City Endurance rears:

And finally migrated to O.T.B. where we drank more beer and ate delicious bar food:

O.T.B. post race celebrations.