Will Dickeson: Cycling Tribe Blog: The Brick Wall

The last three weeks or so have been all about trying to get the legs back after my mid-season break.

I think I did this the hard way – doing a few easy spins around Boulder and then flying to LA to race the Manhattan Beach GP. My main aim for this race was to make it further than 1 lap. In 2007 I did this race and on lap number 2, managed to get punted off the road and into a brick wall. Both the wall and my head were a bit worse for wear and I was trying to put that out of my mind every lap when I could see the still-missing brick which marked the point of impact.

The race looked on paper to be a day for the sprinters – a 2km lap which was essentially a large hotdog shape, and a strong head wind on the back straight. However only 3 laps in, I jumped across to a small group and all of a sudden there were 10 of us up the road, all from different teams. The majority of us then committed to the move and despite some chasing from United Health Care and other groups trying to bridge, we held a gap of close to 1 minute.

With only a few days of riding in the legs, I was pretty much on the limit the whole time, in fact, my heart rate graph looks identical to when I race a time trial. Already in the red, and not having a great sprint at the best of times, I ended up placing 8^th. It was satisfying to run a top 10 in a NRS crit, but I would love to have the opportunity again when I have some good form!

From Manhattan Beach I returned to Boulder and got in 3 or 4 longer days up in the hills with the focus turning to the Tour of Qinghai Lake in China which starts July 16. This race is famous for being one of the highest altitude races in the world as some specific training was in order. My teammate Kiel’s girlfriend is lucky enough to have a cabin near the small town of Westcliffe, about 2 hours South of Denver. The cabin is at 9000 feet and sits at the top of a ridge with a 16km descent in either direction.

We started the camp with a pretty easy day. Well it was supposed to be, following some small country roads and getting a feel for the place. We ended up placing a bit too much faith in Kiel’s Garmin GPS unit which showed a number of roads that it looked like we could loop up. As we found out, many of these roads were in fact 4x4 tracks at best and finally they just disappeared all together. We were feeling pretty adventurous and decided we had come too far to turn back, so it was time to put the bikes on the shoulder for some old fashioned bush bashing. It ended up taking 30min or so to find another track which showed up on the GPS and this turned out to be inside the property of a local rancher. These guys are not always renowned for their friendliness to strangers, even a couple of blokes dressed in colorful lycra, so we stealthed through, avoided his guard dog, jumped the gate and were back on our way to civilization.

This set the tone for the 8 days at the cabin – survival. We spent an hour battling dehydration and corrugations on some dirt road that had been torn up by fire trucks, suffered 2 flats in 150m on another day and decided to turn home early. We even copped rain, lightning, snow and another puncture on the last climb back to the cabin on our last day.

However, we got to ride some great roads also, enjoyed the isolation of a cabin in the middle of nowhere and also watched an amazing 4^th of July fireworks/lightning display. Coming back to Boulder I had the feeling that form was coming and I had done everything possible to prepare for Qinghai Lake.

This all was thrown into limbo when I found out that my application for a China Visa had been rejected. It has been hard to the bottom of it with the semi-English speaking staff and automated telephone messages, so the only option has been to get to the Chinese consulate in person and cross my fingers. So I have been there this morning and no one seemed to say that I can’t get one. I’m supposed to pick it up this afternoon, but I’m not getting too carried away until I actually have it in my hand. Assuming that it comes through, I will fly out tonight and be able give some stage-by-stage reports of the joy that is racing in China. Otherwise I will stay in the US for another 6 weeks and do some cool races, so either one is good.

We’ll wait and see!