2023 US Pro Cup - Vail Lake
Here we go; it’s time for the most important races of the year leading up to Nationals in PA. I back from my first stop at Vail Lake, CA, 3-31 and 4/1. All the big guns were there - almost all the top ten riders in my age group, according to USA Cycling. A good result against these guys would boost my ranking. Many top pros were there, too, like Riley Amos, Haley Batten, Gwen Gibson, Kate Courtney, and my favorite, Hannah Otto, my coach.
This and the upcoming national races will have a short track race (STXC) on the first day, followed by a long cross-country race (XCO) on the second or third day. The short track is .5-1.5 miles long so that spectators can see all the action from one position. It’s usually 20 mins. long, is around 4-6 laps, has only 40 riders, and is extremely fast - so fun for the fans and painful for the athletes.
The long cross-country course is around 60-90mins. for my age group and will be 3-4 laps. The XCO has a lot more climbing and technical features and more racers than the short track. It’s important to be near the front at the start of the race because the XCO courses usually bottleneck early in the race, and if you are not positioned near the front, lots of time can be lost.
On Friday, 3/31, I raced the my first short track ever. I was nervous. I was in the second row at the start line, which isn’t too bad. The first row was full of top ten USAC guys. The start horn sounded, and the pace was immediately full-gas. After the first lap, just over 2mins, we found out we had eight laps left. The race was hard, but I felt good, always in the front group of five. We were constantly trading positions. There wasn’t one rider in control. I was surprised by how aggressive the other racers were. I was hit with elbows several times and getting pushed around. I had to give up my position to avoid a crashing at least half-dozen times. Still, I was always able to fight back.
I was feeling good, so I tried an attack on the penultimate lap. I thought it would be better to get to the finish alone instead of duking it out with these hyper-aggressive racers. The video captures my attack:
As you can see in the video, my attack strung out the top five guys and prevented anyone from behind the chance to move forward. However, three riders, Ben Braveman (#1 in USAC), Tyler Lambert, and Mason Salazar, responded and did not seem too phased. Tyler and Mason got around me with aggressive moves shortly after my attack. Then, near the finish, Ben made a nice move on an inside corner to get by me to move into third. I finished in fourth, not too bad at this level.
The next day was the XCO, a longer race with more climbing. The 45 racers in my age group did three laps on a 3-mile course with 300 ft. of elevation. The terrain was rolling. Based on my results in the short tack, I had a position on the front row and was confident with my form.
For most of the first lap, it was the usual suspects on the front: Mason Salazar, Tyler Lambert, and Ben Bravman. The second lap was the same. I felt the pace was comfortable even though we had separated from the rest of the field. I had planned to attack the group at the start of the third lap. As I was about to make my move, my electronic shifting stopped working. I charged my battery the night before, so I knew it shouldn't be dead, but something wasn't working because I was now single-speeding. Fortunately, the derailleur stopped in a mid-range gear, not too low or too high. Still, this was not good.
With only one gear, I stayed in third position, with Tyler in front of me and Mason leading. Ben was behind me but had started to drop off a little bit. The uphills were now more difficult; I had to push harder at slow rpm instead of shifting into a lower gear with higher rpm. I noticed Tyler seemed to be losing Mason's wheel on every downhill, which concerned me, so I passed Tyler and latched on to Mason. After a few miles, it was only me and Mason.
As we got to the back half of the race course, there was more downhill than uphill, and Mason started to pull away from me. Since I still had only one gear, I was completely spun-out, meaning I couldn't push on the downhill. A few sections pitched up where I started to pull back Mason, but then it was down again. Mason is an awesome downhiller, so there was no way I would bring him back on a broken bike; it would be challenging with one that was working.
Mason Salazar P1, River Valdez P2, Tyler Lambert P3
Mason won, and I came in second, 34 seconds back. I was super disappointed. This was one of the biggest races I've competed in, and it was such a downer to have a mechanical. The good news is that I beat several high-ranked athletes, which will help my ranking. The goal is to be in the top 10 in the US before nationals. I'll keep working and fighting; the next stop is Arkansas.
