Copperopolis - Milton, CA -- April 3, 2010
My butt hurts.
I heard a lot of things from a lot of people about various NorCal road races and how “bad” the pavement is on parts of them. So even though I kept hearing from my husband Kirk and others that this one had bad roads I figured, "Well, I want to start racing sometime and it sounds like they all have some bad roads, so whatever, I’ll just do this one." I did not know until this morning that Copperopolis is called the “Paris-Roubaix” of California. If someone had simply said that to me, it would have instantly conveyed the gravity of the situation and I would have perhaps selected a milder inaugural race.
This race was pretty much a baptism by fire into road racing. My goal of staying with the group the whole way? Ha ha ha. Managed to stick with them the first 2 miles until the first slightest uphill. Then I was on my own, and pretty soon passed by another category who had been started 5 minutes behind us (though they were fast and passed all the women in my category). The race was two 20 mile laps and after the first lap I was having a big dilemma of whether to do the 2nd lap or quit. When I rolled through town I could see 1) a girl from my group sitting on the sidelines who had apparently dropped out and 2) Kirk clapped for me and said, “You can do it!” so I decided to do the 2nd lap.
Road quality? I will only describe the first few miles of the lap as “fucking epic” and the descent the last few miles as “some jacked up shit”. Aside from the unspeakable roads, the scenery was beautiful. You ascend and descend through typical Nor-Cal wooded foothills, and the middle of the lap is flat-to-rolling around a lake, passing many cows. The one skill I apparently do have is the ability to descend well. Or maybe my speedy descent can be ascribed to the fact that the bumpy roads at 35 mph cause your hands to shake so bad if you are attempting to brake that it is better to just hold onto the bars with an iron grip and abandon all braking attempts. I finished long after the rest of my category rolled in, though I heard it was one-by-one with no semblance of a group remaining. I think it is going to be a while til I can keep up with a group for a full race but this was a doozy and I will keep trying in other races until I can, and start doing practice rides with local club and stuff. But I am proud of myself for finishing it. My legs are going to explode now.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger. “ --Friedrich Nietzsche
My Copperopolis 2010 Vital Stats:
- Womens Cat 4: 16 riders at start
- 3 dropped out
- My finish: 12th out of 13. Sweet.
Mike Robertson's Velodramatic website has some good pics of the road.
