Hotter than hell 100 pro 1 cat 2
After a smooth start to a new school year it was time to drive up north to race the Hotter than Hell 100. This race consisted of a crit Friday night, a 100 mile road race Saturday morning and a crit Sunday afternoon. I went up to Wichita Falls with fellow Pearland rider Ronnie strange as well as a few of the racers from Texas San Jose racing team, including Carlos Varges and Travis Brant.
When we arrived at the convention center to pick up our race numbers and packets the entire place was filled with racers as well as riders that will be doing the 100 mile charity ride that goes off after the racers start.
Crit 1:
The Friday night race was a very fast course with tons of people watching the race from all around, when the race started it started off really fast and I found myself in the middle quick a moving peloton. I quickly found myself in a position where I needed to move to the front to be ready to follow attacks and help out my team in any way possible. After spending almost twenty minutes moving up a few riders at a time I finally made it to the front fifteen riders where I wanted to be. Things were going smooth for me in terms of positioning but I was starting to feel the pain of holding my position and the race was still far from being over. At about forty minutes into the race I could feel all my energy going away and starting losing positions as I drifted back to the back of the strung out field. Once I made it to the back I gave it one last push to try to stay connected with the field but the speed was too high and I came off the back of the pack and rolled in.
In terms of cycling I thought I did great in terms of pack control and being where I wanted to be, I just didn’t have the energy or snap to stay with the pack in the ending half of the race.
RR: The Hotter than hell 100 is was going to be my first 100 mile road race and I was excited for this event. The race started out very fast as we left the neighborhood. We were cruising down the road at 30 plus like it was no one’s business. For the first couple of hours I pretty much just rode in the middle front of the pack trying to stay out of trouble and stay sheltered from the wind that was lightly blowing. With still about 30-40 miles left in the race a break went off the front with a few riders from every team including my teammate Russ “big daddy” Walker. Back in the pack however all the teams seemed content with letting that break go off the front so there was no big chase to bring everyone back together. As we hit the final 10 miles of the race my team had a rotating pace line going at the front of the pack and I jumped in to help out the best I can. We kept things under control for the next 20 minutes before some of the other teams started bringing their riders to the front for the lead out in the final 2 miles. I tried to move back to the front to try to help out my team with a final push our sprinter. As I was moving up in the final k there was a big crash right in front of me on the overpass. I slammed on my breaks and was able to get around it without falling. However by the time I got my rhythm going the field was in full sprint mode and I just rode in the final 900m easy to try to save some energy for the third race of the weekend. From the break that stayed away Big Daddy took a solo win. It was great day for the team.
Crit2: The start of crit number two was set in the middle of the day by the convention center. It was very very hot and even windier; the course its self didn’t look that complex but with the high winds it was going to be pretty hard. The race started out very fast like I knew it would, I quickly found myself in the back end of the field at the mercy of the riders at the front. Every lap I tried to move up but anytime we hit the strong crosswind section I could feel that I was losing positions to the stronger riders. After what felt like an endless circle of laps I was on the tail end of the group getting whipped around as I tried to hold contact with the group. Once the race was in the final 20-30 minutes I lost contact with the group and was quickly off the back in the strong cross wind section. I pulled off a lap later to prevent getting heat exhaustion.
Recap: I defiantly feel like I had a good weekend with a lot of positive reinforcement. Mostly in terms of working with my team in the road race and being able to move around better in the pack.
Special thanks to my team and sponsors for allowing me to race this race with them. Another thanks to Ronnie Strange for Driving me all the way from Pearland for this race and Kyle Anderson and his parents for allowing me and some of the team to stay at their house over the weekend.
