teamwork, triumph, and tipsiness

By Molly Van Houweling -- Mt Hood Classic * GC * (W1-3) -- 06/06/10

This season the Metromint women have been enjoying a healthy competition with our local rivals from the Touchstone Climbing team. But when we took a road trip to Hood River, Oregon, for the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, we joined forces to form a NorCal super team. Jane, Amanda, and I were joined by Touchstone guest riders Heather Pryor and Marian Jamison, along with our Colorado-based friend Gaby Ferrat. The super team delivered: I claimed the yellow leader’s jersey on day two and the entire team worked to defend it. We did it! Here’s how it went down . . .

In the days leading up to the race I was struggling with a sore knee from the grueling Mt. Hamilton road race. So I prepared by sitting in a recliner in our team house in Hood River, asking my teammates to bring me ice packs while I carefully read the race bible. In it I found a crucial piece of information that would make this the most important race of my life: the final GC winner would receive a special bottle of brandy made with pears from the Hood River Valley. As regular readers of my race reports know, I celebrate each successful race (and erase the bad ones from memory) by mixing up a commemorative cocktail. So a race with a liquor prize?!? Forget the bum knee. I must win this race.

Stage one was advertised as a day for the sprinters—with a flat, wide-open finish in Trout Lake, Washington. But to get to the finish we had to get over two serious climbs up the slopes of Mt. Adams—on a sometimes narrow (and intermittently unpaved) road lined with snow banks. The climbing started around mile two. And that’s where the attacks started too—ouch! Our friends from Webcor--Lindsay Myers and Ally Stacher--were among the early aggressors and put in some threatening digs. But everything was reeled in and eventually we settled into a steady pace. The middle section of the stage was marked by fast descending, a steep and narrow climb, and lots of challenging gravel. This is where last year’s GC winner--professional mountain biker Sue Butler--started showing her strength, rocketing through the gravel and leaving the rest of us swerving and swearing and sliding out in her dust. This was making me nervous. A crash or a flat at the wrong time and the brandy could be out of my reach! So I was desperate to stay out of trouble, and did so by sitting on the front down the final long, fast descent. This was a needless waste of energy, and it also contributed to my over-eagerness when we got to the bottom and approached the final sprint--with Heather, Amanda, and me ready to get sprinter Jane to the finish. I started our lead-out train with 3km to go, which was just perfect . . . for the other teams who got on the back of our train and were positioned to do proper lead-outs in the final 500 meters. Oops. But our top priority for the day was to finish with three or more of our riders in the front group. Mission accomplished.

Day two was the time trial--18.5 miles on a windy, beautiful road overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. I was barely out of the parking lot where we started before I got blown off of the course. And I’m pretty sure I almost became airborne a couple of times. But I held on tight and won the stage by 40 seconds. Heather and Jane were close behind in 5th and 7th. Our goal for this stage was to emerge with multiple GC contenders. Mission accomplished.

I claimed the yellow leader’s jersey following stage two and got some friendly coverage in the local cycling news. We all got a laugh about it because the story got my first name wrong, it got our team name wrong, and the photo of me was actually of Heather. But the kicker was the line in the story that noted that although I’m a law professor, in the next stage I might struggle with “the laws of gravity.” The laws of gravity? Did they just call me fat?!? This means war.

So on day three I called on every team member to defend my physique (and my bottle of brandy) by setting the pace and covering attacks so I could save energy for my final gravity-defying climb. While Gaby looked out for me at the back of the pack, Marian and Amanda were all over the front. Amanda hit it particularly hard over the early climbs--keeping the pace steady (and high--whoa!). And although we were hoping that Heather could sit in and save her awesome climbing legs for later, she also pitched in to cover some dangerous early moves. As the field was whittled down, we were particularly attentive to the riders who were within a couple of minutes of my GC lead. So we didn’t immediately react when Sarah Stewart of the Canadian Total Restoration team slipped away at the top of a roller. Some of the other GC contenders had been helping to reel in threatening moves, and we were hoping that if we were patient they would do some more of our work for us. This time they didn’t bite. And I knew that Sarah was a strong rider and only a few minutes back on GC. But Total Restoration had several riders in that position. If we got into a cycle of chasing down every attack and counter attack we could be toast by the time we got to the final climb. So we dithered for a while before Heather and I both started getting really nervous. We found each other, put our heads together, and decided it was finally time to bring out the serious firepower: Jane. Modest Jane wasn’t sure if she had enough left in the tank to be helpful. But Heather and I knew what would happen if she took a few of her massive turns at the front, and we were right—the gap came down in no time and Sarah was caught just as the climbing to the finish was getting serious. All of the sudden a group of women who have good relationships with gravity started drilling it at the front. By the turn onto the really steep final 3km the remaining pack was strung out. By 2km to go it was shattered. I hung on to the leading wheels as long as I could. After I lost contact with the very front, GC contender Sue Butler came around me and I latched onto her wheel. We had a spirited little exchange of attacking and counter-attacking each other in the final kilometer. She got the better of me there, but I managed to finish 8th on the stage and even gained a little time on my nearest GC competitor. So I was still in yellow—now by a minute. Mission accomplished with hard work and sacrifice by everyone. We celebrated the great team day with dinner and a cocktail brainstorming session, where we were joined by our support crew of Rob, Judd, Cody, Greg, and Rene, and by minty teammate Ariel—who was on his way to successfully finishing his first Mt. Hood against the pro men!

Sunday afternoon was the downtown crit. I was confident that the team could both help me defend the yellow jersey and also sprint to a good stage result. But I didn’t complain when we learned before the stage that it wouldn’t count for the GC because the officials (accurately) predicted that the race would be a chaotic mess in the pouring rain. Many women decided not to race at all, and most of the rest of us got spit out the back and pulled before it was even half over. Under the circumstances, I was pretty happy to exit to the sidelines and watch Jane stick it out to the end and sprint for 7th.

Party time! At the podium ceremony I got my final yellow jersey, a commemorative bottle opener (more alcohol themed prizes—I love Oregon!), and that beautiful bottle of brandy. Then we gathered back at the house for a final team dinner. The beer opener came in handy there. It would take some serious mixology back at home to concoct the proper commemorative cocktail. Recipe coming soon.