Chico Stage Race: An Overview

  I've raced before but nothing official until this past weekend.  I raced in the Chico Stage Race.  I'll get to my experience in the 3 stages that I did in another post and maybe a little in this one but first I would like to go over all of the stages in a kind of spectator and/or racer point of view.  For the P 1/2 and 35+ 1/2/3 categories there were four stages and for everyone else there were three (stage one was not included).  I'll brake it down stage by stage.  You can get lots of info on the race at the race's website http://www.chicostagerace.com/

Stage One : Thunderhill Twilight Circuit Race

This was pretty awesome.  I wasn't in the race but I'm sure for the racer's this was a great experience.  Races on motorways seem to be only for the elite so to have this included in the Chico Stage Race may have boosted its chances for growth in future and it may turn the event into a classic in the U.S.   The field was 110 strong for the P 1/2 race!  The crowd didn't seem to be big but that can be thanks to the event being held about 40 minutes outside of Chico in Willows, CA (it took my family about an hour to get there).   There were probably a lot more people there than it appeared becuase of the courses size and the amount of places which the track could be viewed.  Several small bleachers could be found around the track but most people had brought lawn or camping chairs they could take around with them and sit pretty much anywhere along the track.  The race could also be viewed from a skybox which I happened to like besides not being able to take decent pictures through the tinted glass.  Almost the entire track was visible from the skybox.

  With sprint points being given out throughout the race it made for alot of action.  Several riders attempted breakaways but I think the courses nature pretty much drowned out any of those attempts.  It came down to a sprint finish  which was really close, because I couldn't tell who won from where I was standing and I don't think the riders knew either because no one raised their hands in victory.  Good fun, and a great experience.  Part of the reason I wanted to go, besides getting to watch the race, was just being somewhere I'd never been and it was a beautiful place.  The track is set in foothills and right now they are all green. 

  The best part was getting in the car.  Why? Because my three year old son thanked me for taking him to "the bicycle race" or more specifically "Papa...spacibo za to chto ti prines menja na velisopednaja gonka."  I'll tell you what. That made quite a happy person.  He thanked me several times actually.  He watched some of the race but luckily at the track there is a small playground area which made it easier for my wife to watch the kids (she is an amazing woman who let me have fun this past weekend at the races).  Besides having the playground there was lots of room for kids to run willy nilly and not get into any trouble.   Here's a couple videos from youtube of the race and the winner.

Stage Two - Paskenta Hills Road Race

  This is also a course that I think is worthy of making the Chico Stage Race a classic.  Mostly for it's 4 mile strip of gravel which rips apart races.  The higher category races hit the gravel twice since they do two laps which makes this race a 90 miler.   This had even fewer spectators since it's a bit further than circuit race was probably 50 minutes or so from Chico (it took me about an hour and 20 minutes).  This race is also set in foothills so it's pretty though while racing I didn't really look around too much, but I've ridden the course before when I did look around and there are streams and green hills with the cascades as a backdrop (still with some snow caps).  Last time I road here (not in the race and alone) I did a little talking to the livestock out there.  Call me crazy but it's fun to make the animals look your way and image them thinking, "Wh wh What? oh it's a crazy cyclist." There were sheep and goats and horses and cows so I got to make many farm animal sounds! You may think of stink when I mention all of the animals but none of them were close to each other.  Lots of open pasture for the animals to roam with a road running through it for cyclists to ride and race.  

   Back to the race.   Once there there was plenty of parking and space to warm up on your trainer or even ride around a bit.  The local elementary school was putting on a fundraiser with a spaghetti feed for any tired and drained riders.  The race course is pretty simple.  About twenty miles of flatness and then a bit more than twenty miles of mostly rollers where there is more up than down and don't forget the four miles of gravel (which is also rollers) towards the end of the lap.  The finish is pretty flat with a slight up hill at the very end which could make for a decent sprint finish but I didn't see one so I couldn't tell you how interesting it is and I don't think there were any mass finishes anyway. 

  I didn't bring the family out to this one because there's not much out there for little kids.  It's a very small town and the few times I've been out there I didn't see any playgrounds or anything so not much to do unless you are old enough to enjoy just being outside and waiting, longing, yearning to see, after almost two hours, a cyclist or if your lucky a whole group! Not good for watching, but definately fun and challenging to ride.  Here's a couple of videos one is really long (about and hour) but most of the rollers and all of the gravel on the course and the other is the P 1/2 winner.

 

Stage Three : River Road Time Trial

There's not too much to explain for the time trial other than it's just about as flat as you can ask for and has two easy right hand turns.  When I say easy I mean there's no need to get out of your tuck for the turns.  The pavement is decent.  It's not ideal but the road is definitely not bad.  I saw a few bikes that had flatted during my tt.  Riders were let off in 30 second increments throughout the day.  If you wanted to see screaming fast bikes with huge price tags then this was the place to hang out.  It was only a bit over a mile away from the downtown criterium so most everyone road there bike to the start and back to the criterium from the finish since most of the parking is downtown.   Here's a video of what I'm pretty sure is the P 1/2 riders.




Stage Four : Chico Downtown Criterium

 This one is for everybody.  In that there are a lot of people to come out and watch.  One of the main events is the kid's races!  I didn't get to watch all of them since my race had just finished but I know they had several different races for different age groups and I know that it was really cute.  I could see the younger kids all lined up across the road from a distance and it was quite the site.  The crit could be viewed from anywhere on the course since it's located in downtown Chico which also means that there are quite a few places you can choose from to eat.  From a viewers perspective there is one thing you need to be aware of.  My brother and I were talking before my race when he says," what's that smell?"  He was right it smelled bad.  We had stopped in front of a pair of benches.  He answered his own question,"Oh, yeah this is where the bums hang out."  It is true.  The park area in the center of the downtown criterium course is where the homeless/vagrants, whatever you want to call them spend a lot of time whether it be just sitting, or sleeping but worst of all using the bushes as their personal toilets.  Just a note to be aware of.  Better to stay around the perimeter of the course or close to the sidewalk on the inner part of the course.  
  With all of the primes being handed out, keeping the racing lively, and the larger crowds the crits were the most exciting part of the stage race.  One of the best moments was probably seeing Garrett Marking, a local rider who's only 15, win the Cat 3 crit.  It was simply great racing by him and his team (Limitless Cycling).  Garrett got into a 3 man break early and held it well over half of the race when they were swallowed up.  Another Limitless Cycling member counter attacked keeping the pace high.  I think the most impressive part came with three to go.  I believe a Team Audi rider was in a solo break and on this third to last lap the peloton caught and Garrett broke away.  He was able to hold on to the finish where he raised his hands up in victory and gave a few punches to the sky and of course the crowd loved it.  After the race I overheard several riders who were in the cat. 3 race talking about how they were pushing the pace but could not keep up with him (Garrett) and were stunned to find out he was only 15. Here's a link to Garrett crossing the line http://instagram.com/p/l5r-8SNQoG/ .  
   The course itself is a good one which I would consider fairly difficult though my only experience doing crits prior to this one were on fairly rectangular courses.  It is an L shaped course  with 6 90degree turns.  The finish line was pretty close to the last corner so pretty much anyone who came into that final turn holding pretty good speed took the win.  I think the pro 1/2 winner talks about it a little after his win.  Here is a video of that (P 1/2 winner) and of cat 4 45+ race.  It's the whole race but you can see the course.




The conclusion here is that this race is getting bigger and better.  It has all of the elements to attract bigger teams and better riders.  The courses are great and a couple of them are ideal for spectators.  I'm already looking forward to doing this one again next year.  And... the overall winners (P 1/2) were... I don't know.  You'll have to look it up.  Cruel maybe to those who really want to know but they were all from the same team - Optum Pro Cycling (who also won the team competition). Pretty sure two of the top three are Routley and Friedman from the videos above.

Keep Spinning!

Cyclists believe in ghosts?

I've made it a goal to get up in the morning and ride at 4am.  Yes that's right 4am.  Why so early in the morning?  Because it's the only time I have to get in a two hour ride.  My kids wake up at around six and I being the morning person in our family take care of the kidlets in the early hours.  My wife gets to take a little longer to wake up and that is a very good thing.  A happy wife makes a happy family!  I've been getting up early to ride for the past three weeks.  It has become more of a daily occurrence since I quite my job! I've started back up at school and we'd crunched numbers for a while to make sure I could and well I am a happy stay at home dad/student now.  My wife works out of our home so we get to see each other a lot more now!  

So I've been waking up at 4 am to ride.  It's very dark at 4 am.  Not just that the sun isn't out, but where I live the street lights are not on, or rather they are non-existent.  I have several routes that I like to ride so there's always something different to do in my two hours in the morning.   But it seems I've been putting off one of the routes that I really like since I started riding in the wee hours of the morning.  It is 25 miles or so and has about 2500 ft of climbing.  It's down one side of a canyon up the other side and back.  As I set out on the ride this morning a thought crossed my mind as to why I've been putting this route off.  Many reasons ran through my head but one that stuck out was that on the opposite side of the canyon up towards the top of the climb is a cemetery.  Now I'm not superstitious but I can't say I don't believe in ghosts in fact I might say otherwise if forced to give my opinion but riding in or near cemeteries in the pitch dark of the very early morning on a little single lane road, up in the tree covered mountains is not my idea of the ideal ride. 

Before I get to riding near the cemetery I must tell about riding in the dark a little.  Riding in the dark is scary.  I have a pretty good light but i still don't see what's on my right and left let alone looking behind to see well nothing.  Being unaware is scary.  Sounds are more scary while riding in the dark.  Mostly because you don't know where they are coming from or who is making those twig cracking or bush rustling noises.  "Please let it be a squirrel and not a pit bull" or "I hope I'm going fast enough that the skunk can't spray this far! If it's a skunk." There are two scary colors while riding in the dark.  The first is rarely scary because it's so common.  Red.  You see red light on cars and such or stop lights or stop signs but every now and again there are strange little red lights coming from who knows what that are creepy becuase you can't tell what they are attached to.  They remind me of the red beaming bird's eyes perched on a tree or bush in a dark forest that you might see in movies.

 

The other color which is creepy is white.   What color are ghosts or spirits or whatever you want to call them? White.  At least that's what they are usually perceived to be.  Almost everything that's white in the dark is visible to some extent and of course it's not clear enough to tell exactly what it is so it comes across as a hazy fuzzy white color.  Yes I saw a few white things on my ride and yes they were all creepy.  Nothing like a nice big irregular ovalish shaped hazy white spot which is apparently elevated off of the ground to get the heart rate up.   Yes I was a few of these hazy white spots.  They were all a little different size and shape.  A family of... or a few generations of white floating spots along the road.  Luckily I was going down hill.  Did I see what they were for sure?  Yes.  They were rocks.  Big rocks protruding from the canyon wall which were painted white so no one would run into them.  What they didn't think about is that they might just scare someone enough to turn the other way and go plunging off the cliff.  The other thing that I saw that was white was a fence.  Now not all fences are scary but this one was.  I was riding along thinking to myself that there is a cemetery somewhere up this road and maybe I won't even notice that I've gone by it because it's so dark.  WRONG! "oh yeah there's a little white picket fence that borders the cemetery."  The white fence is there just so that you know it's there in the midnight hours.  Whoever built it was thinking I'm going to put the heeby jeebies into any cyclist who is going to ride by in the wee hours of the morn'.  Their wish came true with me.  Riding by the little cemetery wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for all of the rustling sounds and creaking trees(I assume creaking sounds are trees) and of course I'm moving slow uphill so there's no getting away from what lurks behind the white picket fence.  I made it though.  I made it home too.  No zombie apocalypes while on my ride this morning. Phew. 

There's something else that's white and quite scary in the dark too.  It's little white cars like priuses or geos or fiats.  In the distance they look like ghosts screaming towards you.  They kind of have that humming whistling sound too as they buzz down the road which adds to their scary factor.  Just kidding. All you see are headlights. 

Anyway riding bikes is fun.  Keep spinning. 

It'll Make You Laugh! - Video

Saw this a few weeks ago.  My sister-in-law sent it to me and I'm glad she did because we got some good laughs over it.  I'm sure you will too! Enjoy.